MADNESS AND LAUGHTER: CERVANTES’S COMIC VISION
IN DON QUIXOTE
By
Rachel Noël Bauer
Dissertation
Submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Vanderbilt University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
Spanish
December, 2007
Nashville, Tennessee
Approved:
Edward H. Friedman
Earl Fitz
Andrés Zamora
William Franke
Copyright @ 2007 by Rachel Noël Bauer
All Rights Reserved
To:
my committee members, Drs. Earl Fitz, Andrés Zamora, and William Franke, whose
invigorating support and excited encouragement motivated me to do better.
my advisor and the head of my committee, Dr. Edward H. Friedman, whose dream-like
efficiency and continual availability made this whole process a lot less painful.
Thank you for all of your support these past four years.
Dr. Todd Hughes, who always had time to listen and who always offered good advice.
my McTyeirites at the McTyeire International House, who happily put up with two years
worth of over-exuberant ravings about Don Quixote. You helped me
keep in perspective why I was doing all of this learning.
mis buenos amigos madrileños, cuya paciencia burlesca con una guiri perdida pero
decidida me ayudó no sólo a mejorar mi castellano, sino que también me enseñó
otra capa de la risa, si se puede decir, española.
my Mom and Dad and siblings, I could not have done this without you. Thank you for
your unending support, for reading Don Quixote and my manuscripts,
and for urging me to not give up.
Alberto, my ‘well’ of support and laughter, without whom I surely would have thrown in
the towel years ago and fled back to my non-academic life in Madrid. I love you.
And lastly, to all of you out there struggling through your degrees who toil honestly in
your intellectual pursuits: ¡ánimo y al toro!
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DEDICATION …………………………………………………………………………. iii
INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………… 1
Chapter
I.
READING DON QUIXOTE IN THE MENIPPEAN TRADITION ……………10
II.
DISTURBING DEVICES: JOURNEY AND HUMOR IN DON QUIXOTE….. 54
III.
HUMOR IN CERVANTES AND AVELLANEDA: UN SENDERO QUE
SE BIFURCA ………………………………………………………………….. 92
IV.
MADNESS AND LAUGHTER: INGENIOUS INTERPRETATION……….. 163
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………... 202
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………... 205
iv
INTRODUCTION
People who never laugh
cannot be taken seriously.
— Seneca
Wisdom at times is found in folly.
— Horace
If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must
first break your looking glass.
— François Rabelais
When I first began to think about writing my dissertation, I knew that my topic
would have to be one that I was very passionate about, in order to keep me motivated
through the long and arduous roller coaster ride that I had heard writing a thesis would
be. My love of literature and history, but most of all my enthusiasm for comedy and for
all things that fill life with laughter, made my decision easy. Don Quixote encompasses a
wide variety of laughter-provoking artifices. This, in addition to its wealth of historical
references as well as its place in literary history, has provided me with the necessary
fodder to not only craft my thesis but moreover to keep me excited about the subject
matter. Although other critics have focused separately on the Menippean satire, on the
role of journey in all of Cervantes’s works, on the importance of the Avellaneda sequel,
and on madness in literature, I believe the analysis that I provide here, with regard to Don
Quixote specifically, offers a fresh perspective on a four hundred year old creation.
1
Chapter 1, “Reading Don Quixote in the Menippean Tradition,” looks at the
manner in which Menippean satire appears in Cervantes’s novel. In his prologues,
Cervantes posits that Don Quixote is a parody of books of chivalry, but this seems to be
only a piece of the puzzle towards fully understanding his creation. A parody is an
imitation of a particular form, generally made in jest. While Don Quixote does attempt to
follow the books of chivalry in his actions, Don Quixote itself is not a parody of form,
strictly speaking, since it varies in plot and composition from the traditional chivalric
romances. In other words, to some degree it parodies the actions of chivalric romances
but it is not written in the same format.1 The parody in Don Quixote provides humor
through which an experimentation of various ideas and beliefs often occurs. Although the
readers are not provided with a moral or message concerning the ideas explored in the
text, they are often times offered the opportunity to reflect on the plausibility of a
particular philosophy or social convention. Menippean satire is the genre whose purpose
is the testing of a truth or an idea, and humor is one of its defining features.
Corresponding to the analysis of this genre and its representation within Don
Quixote, I primarily make reference to Northrop Frye and Mikhail Bakhtin, two critics
who have studied the Menippean satire independently of each other but who concur on
several basic points regarding the genre. I also examine interpretations of Cervantine
humor and comic genres by Anthony Close and Laura Gorfkle. In order to comprehend
the multiple layers and techniques of comicality employed by Cervantes in this novel, I
1
Books of chivalry, such as Amadís de Gaula, Lisuarte de Grecia, or Le Morte d’Arthur, tend to be very
lengthy, but they do not play with prose and verse in the way that Cervantes does in Don Quixote, nor focus
as heavily on dialogue between the characters. Their plots are also highly fantastical, where character types
such as superhuman knights undergo dangerous quests to restore honor or to rescue beautiful maidens. Don
Quixote, in contrast, does not set off to avenge anyone but rather seeks fame and glory under the guise of
rekindling the chivalric tradition. As a result, in my opinion, Don Quixote does not faithfully parody the
normal trajectory of chivalric romance because its protagonist is not given a mission but rather makes his
own.
2
look at Menippean satire in texts such as Lucian’s A Trip to the Moon, Apuleius’s The
Golden Ass, Petronius’s The Satyricon, and Cristóbal de Villalón’s El crotalón. I believe
Menippean satire such as these influenced both Cervantes’s writing and the evolution of
the novel itself, as can be seen in Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, Mikhail
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, and Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, to
name just a few examples.
Briefly, Menippean satire is a protean genre. This flexibility of form not only
allows it to mix freely with various other genres, but also injects instability into otherwise
stable narratives. The principal ingredients of this genre include dialogue, laughter, a
variety of voices within the text, as well as movement either through journey or a
transitioning of space. It also combines verse and prose. All these elements, in their own
way, add to a subversion of narrative control. It is only natural that laughter, one of the
most destabilizing tools in literature, serves as the key ingredient. Laughter, just like
Menippean satire, creates a subversion of some kind, whether it be of the absolute
position of the author or of a socio-historical construct. The readers, in interpreting this
subversion, are offered the opportunity to react via laughter. Menippean satire serves as a
vehicle through which dissimilar ideas or unusual events can collide. Within predictable
elements of time and space, the readers interpret that specific actions will have a
particular outcome. When these time-space elements become unpredictable, the actions
no longer achieve their customary result. Thus, in La historia del Abencerraje y de la
hermosa Jarifa, when Abindarraez gives his word to Rodrigo de Narváez that he will
return as prisoner after delivering his message to Jarifa, there is no element of surprise
when he does follow through, because keeping one’s word is what is expected of knights.
3
In Part I, chapter 3 of Don Quixote, Andrés’s master, Juan Haldudo, also promises Don
Quixote that he will pay Andrés for the work he has done as shepherd. But what Don
Quixote fails to recognize is that Juan is not a knight and therefore does not subscribe to
the same social laws. It is easy for Juan to lie and then punish Andrés even further after
Don Quixote leaves. The realization that the honor code that Don Quixote believes in
does not apply here allows for an unexpected twist in interpretation, which thereby is
capable of provoking laughter on the part of the readers. Through the characters’
conversations and actions, the social construct of honesty and keeping one’s word is
brought into question, with the outcome of a deceitful master and a duped Don Quixote
serving to flesh out the problematic of a chivalric-social philosophy. This examination of
a social construct through dialogue, humor, and distance is what lies at the heart of
Menippean satire. Through the textual examples I analyze in this chapter, I show where
this genre surfaces in Don Quixote and how Menippean satire affects an overall
understanding of Cervantes’s novel.
In the second chapter, “Disturbing Devices: Journey and Humor in Don Quixote,”
I draw a parallel between the narrative devices of travel and comicality, and how their
employment destabilizes a text. Especially in Don Quixote, the storyline contains
multiple concepts of journey. In The Dialogic Imagination, Bakhtin discusses the
chronotope, or a point in the text where temporal and spatial objects intersect. Every
intersection offers a distinctive point within the narrative that influences the storyline. In
other words, this junction creates an atmosphere of possibilities that, as the character
passes through, can have an effect on the direction of the text. Steven Hutchinson, in
Cervantine Journeys, employs Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the road and
4
analyzes all of Cervantes’s writings. In this chapter, I expand on Hutchinson’s work by
focusing specifically on Don Quixote and the various types of journeys that exist in the
novel as well as how they add humor. Some of the journeys that I analyze are those that
take place in dialogues, through the act of reading, via evolving signifiers, and with
regard to the production of laughter. Anything that is interpreted as humorous, for
example, in many ways parallels the mechanisms of journey: through a fluctuation in
coordinates, a change occurs and, in the case of comic coordinates, laughter is the
outcome. It is a physical phenomenon that takes place as the reader assimilates and
comprehends an unlikely coupling of ideas or issues. In order for someone to find
something humorous or laughter-provoking, generally speaking, an incongruity or
unusual crossing of ideas must take place. Amadís de Gaula, for instance, speaks to
Oriana with vocabulary fitting a high-born maiden. When Don Quixote employs the same
type of speech pattern to address the two prostitutes waiting outside the inn (I: 2), the
women, who are unaccustomed to such treatment, and the readers are provoked into
laughing. Since the prostitutes are not high-born, Don Quixote’s vocabulary does not fit
the recipients and this contrast incites a comic interpretation. The technique of humor,
therefore, should be understood as a narrative journey, because it transports the audience
away from the previous textual linearity. There is also the physical and mental journeying
that occurs during the act of reading. As the readers’ eyes travel from page to page, so too
they move in and out of the many layers of narration in the novel. The readers journey
through the act of reading physically, via the act of moving from one word to the next,
and mentally, via the concepts created by the words. These actions coincide with the act
of interpretation. Depending on how the readers read a particular scene, laughter is
5
created if it is interpreted as funny. In the rest of the chapter, in addition to understanding
laughter as journey as well as how reading is an act of journey, I look at how a word
travels through a text accruing new meanings, how characters evolve through the journey
of dialogues, and how a character’s particular goal can be a voyage in self-discovery.
Chapter 3, “Humor in Cervantes and Avellaneda: Un sendero que se bifurca,”
focuses on the humor found in Cervantes’s and Avellaneda’s versions of Don Quixote.
Initially, I mention critics’ attempt to identify Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, as well
as their effort to determine the level of influence Avellaneda had on Cervantes’s text and
vice versa. Subsequently, the humor that surfaces in each novel through dialogue, plot,
and narrational devices is explored. Avellaneda prefers to incorporate a more
unidirectional laughter, where the observers enjoy the antics of the participants in a
particular scene. Cervantes, however, generally favors a more carnivalesque laughter.
This is where everyone, including the readers, are participants in the laughter, in that they
laugh at each other as well as at themselves. Multidirectional laughter in general leads to
a rejuvenation within the text by fostering development of characters beyond their
traditional roles. Unidirectional laughter, on the other hand, promotes an overall tone that
is negative or stagnant because the disparaging nature of this kind of laughter
immobilizes character development and reinforces established hierarchies.
When one analyzes each novel’s ending, however, the outcomes appear to
contradict the direction of the text up until that point: Cervantes’s knight errant dies, for
example, while Avellaneda’s is only temporarily cured of his madness before setting out
on new adventures. I look at what these endings may represent with regard to the
comicality contained in the text up to that point. Above all, I strive to show the necessity
6
of reading both authors’ novels, for their differing types of humor as well as their
portrayal of the two main protagonists, but mostly so that a fuller appreciation of
Cervantes’s magnum opus may be attained.
Utilizing Erasmus’s Praise of Folly as a starting point, Chapter 4, or “Madness
and Laughter: Ingenious Interpretation,” examines madness from the vantage point of
humanism. My interest here lies in the ethical and historical dimensions of laughter. As a
direct consequence of his madness, Don Quixote transforms windmills and wine bags
into giants, and a herd of sheep into an army of knights. He follows his visions and,
because his adventures are steeped in a humorous context of parody, satire, and absurdity
among other things, they can be laughter-provoking. Although viewed as a madman, Don
Quixote is neither alienated nor silenced. His insanity takes an active role and works to
rejuvenate everyone, the majority of whom react to his antics with laughter. More than
solely derisive, this laughter is also at times due to the witness’s ability to relate to Don
Quixote. Those who are not able to laugh at themselves, such as Sansón Carrasco or the
Duke and Duchess, are those who are deemed insalubrious by the reader, in contrast to
the insane protagonist.
Don Quixote is not the only character to exhibit traits of madness, however. Just
about every character in the novel partakes in some kind of silliness, obsession,
foolishness, or what could otherwise be considered an unstable action. I believe that this
is due to an underlying current of humor that stems from the belief that madness is a
fundamental human attribute. As in Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly, Cervantes embraces
these aspects of the human experience. It is true that characters such as the Barber and the
Curate sought to control Don Quixote’s madness under the pretext of saving him, but at
7
the same time they also spur him on as well as act foolishly when they attempt to control
him. With the Duke and Duchess, Don Quixote’s madness was a form of entertainment
for them. Rather than truly attempting to rout it out or eliminate it from their lives, they
encouraged his madness and gave it their full attention, going to almost absurd lengths to
harness it.
It is this embracing of all aspects of humanity, including both reason and
madness, or the elevated and the vulgar, or the noble and the base, that is so adequately
captured by Cervantes in the exploits of Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and various other
characters. At many different times throughout the novel, the narrators, translator, and
characters alike react with amazement when Don Quixote, labeled as insane, comes forth
with sound judgments or wise proclamations. The same thing occurs when Sancho Panza,
considered inexperienced and dimwitted, renders intelligent verdicts as governor of the
Island of Barataria. The observers’ reactions of incredulity perhaps belie a society’s
inability to view the possibility of someone embodying supposedly opposite qualities;
rather, from this black-or-white perspective, it is understood that an individual can be
either crazy or sane, either simple or intelligent, either silly or serious, but not both.
Nonetheless, in Don Quixote, there are many times when those characters that hold more
respectable roles in the novel, such as the Curate, Barber, and Duke and Duchess, act in
foolish or ridiculous ways. Continuing with this idea of the merging of opposites, I
explore society’s need to separate characteristics like sanity and madness and how
Humanists such as Erasmus seek to erase the borders between these divisions and instead
accommodate all aspects of being human. Cervantes, too, subtly appears to be
8
questioning these dichotomies as he imbues his characters with supposedly conflictive
qualities and emphasizes the surprise in the spectators’ reactions.
The analyses in these chapters focus on the organic element of humor that is so
apparent in Cervantes’s masterpiece. It is multifaceted and the text itself serves as an
anatomy of various examples of comicality. Rooted in the humanist tradition, which
recognizes the complexity of human nature and cherishes all of its representatives, Don
Quixote is a wonderful adventure in questioning life, society, and its ideas. At the same
time, it is a carnivalesque journey in laughter and a praise of folly.
9
CHAPTER I
READING DON QUIXOTE IN THE MENIPPEAN TRADITION
Miguel de Cervantes’s novel El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha is
an amalgamation of genres, voices, ideas, fantasies, and relationships. The basic plot of a
self-made, crazy knight and his simple, loyal squire is interlaced with interactions that
take place with a large quantity of characters. These encounters provide for a variety of
subplots in the form of anecdotes told by many of the characters, which are relayed to the
reader in various forms including verses, short stories, letters, and even a puppet show.
Moreover, the text itself is peppered with the narrators’ and translator’s commentaries,
providing additional levels of metafictional activity. In the prologue to Part I, Cervantes
implies that Don Quixote is a parody of books of chivalry, but I believe this is only one
piece of the puzzle. A parody is an imitation of a particular form, made in jest. The type
of parody found in Don Quixote’s does more than provide humor, however; it opens the
door for the evaluation of various ideologies and beliefs. While the readers are not given
a conclusive moral or ultimatum with regard to the cultural ideas examined in the text,
they are oftentimes provided the opportunity to reflect on the tenability, via its
conceptualization, of a particular philosophy, social construct, or ideology. Several
cultural ideas or social constructs that surface in Don Quixote include the concept of class
mobility, woman’s role in society, the issue of authority within the family structure as
well as between an author and his work, the hazy border between truth and fiction and, of
course, the plausibility of chivalric values in a society. Anthony Close, in Cervantes and
the Comic Mind of His Age, discusses this treatment of cultural issues when he analyzes
10
Cervantes’s El coloquio de los perros. Calling it a “weighty, reflective pendant,” he
places it in the same literary tradition as The Golden Ass. Close observes that the type of
dialogue found in El coloquio is what really sets it apart from Cervantes’s other
exemplary novels:
This aligns the Coloquio with the typically didactic purpose of the Renaissance
literary dialogue: that of putting across weighty ideas in accessible form to a wide
readership. . . . The Coloquio reveals general kinship with numerous Spanish
dialogues written from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, which treat serious
matter in a free-and-easy, meandering style enlivened by proverbs, anecdotes,
edifying examples, jests, scenes from everyday life, satire, narrative. (33)
Close is correct in asserting that the Coloquio does fit with other dialogical works within
Golden Age literature, but this literary current actually stems from the ancient Greeks. In
addition, what he fails to do in his analysis is give this type of narrative dialogue the label
with which it has been identified by other critics such as Northrop Frye, Mikhail Bakhtin,
and Laura Gorfkle, just to name a few. The form that embodies this device of portraying
an idea in a work so as to test it is Menippean satire. It is also a genre whose principal
mechanisms are humor and dialogue. Frye and Bakhtin, two critics who have studied
Renaissance Menippean satire independently of one another, coincide on several basic
points regarding how to define this genre. Neither, however, fully analyzes Cervantes’s
novel with regard to the literary tradition of Menippean satire, but rather each mentions it
in passing. Using mainly these two theorists’ definitions, examples of other Menippean
satire, and a close reading of Don Quixote, I intend to demonstrate how Menippean satire
exists within Cervantes’s novel and that it serves as an integral aid in enriching the
reader’s appreciation of the text.
The cynic Menippus of Gadara is given credit for having first used this form of
literature during the third century B.C.E. A century later Varro imitated Menippus and in
11
his honor gave the genre the name of Menippean satire. Within Classical Studies, the
term Menippean satire is used to refer to this form, but outside of this field and
throughout different areas of world literature, there are a confusing number of labels for
this genre, including Menippea, prosimetrum, versiprose, anatomy, and Varronian satire,
as well a confusion between defining this form and that of the mock eulogy or
paradoxical encomium. This is because this genre in general has been understudied.
Eugene Kirk, in Menippean Satire, points out that its lack of study within Classics
departments, for example, is due to how it is perceived in comparison to other genres:
Remarks in pre-modern authorities are [spare], due to critical notions of a
hierarchy of “kinds” or genres within which satire was a vulgar, low, and mimetic
literature not worthy of the serious attention deserved by higher forms such as the
epic, tragedy, epyllion, or elegy. Menippean satire could not even claim the few
points of elegance that might typify formal verse or satire; the genre was a
travesty upon every kind of generic conformity, and it sent up whatever was
exalted in its design of parody and frequent anti-intellectualism. (xxxi-ii)
In academic circles, for the most part, it was excluded from the canon of genres
considered worthy of study. Those who did decide to study it generally chose only to
focus on one particular time period or on the utilization of Menippean satire in only one
nation’s literature. This has resulted in an incomplete analysis of the genre, with critics
creating or incorrectly using terms, as well as making assumptions about it based solely
on their nation’s literature. It is necessary to take into account, or at least acknowledge,
the history of Menippean satire within the European literary tradition, in order to attain a
better understanding of what the purpose of this genre is, how this genre has evolved over
time, why this genre was used by so many different and seemingly unrelated authors, and
in general, in order to better understand its function in a particular text, such as in Don
Quixote. In this chapter, however, I offer a brief survey of the history of Menippean
12
satire, specifically with regard to how Don Quixote fits into this literary tradition. By
mentioning authors and texts previous to Cervantes that are steeped in the Menippean
tradition, I believe this will lend interpretation and a further understanding of particular
segments of Don Quixote where these references appear.
Kirk provides a concise historical overview of the history of Menippean satire
from ancient Greece through seventeenth century Western European literature. This
summary begins with Menippus, who directed his satires at the formal schools of Thebes,
where he was more than likely not welcomed as he was a foreigner and a former slave:
He chose to parody the established genres of philosophic discourse . . . by
exaggerating their fictions and arguments, pushing their logic to an absurd
extreme simply by taking the sages completely literally (e.g., Epicurus was born
when some atoms fortunately collided), and by thrusting in verses, songs,
iambics, curses, and other unexpected and rambunctious material upon the formal
learned genres. (xiv)
One century later, Varro borrows Menippus’s form because he recognizes its success at
keeping an audience’s attention, via humor and the mixing of verse and prose. Changing
its target, he focuses instead on the charlatans and hypocrites of philosophy rather than on
the schools themselves. Over the next three centuries, there were several other principal
authors who utilized this form. Several of the most famous representations include
Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (The Pumpkinification of Claudius), Petronius’s Satyricon,
Lucius Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, and Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story and
Dialogues of the Dead.
During the Middle Ages, the focus of this genre shifts away from parodying
learning, due to its decline, and instead turns to examine fortune and destiny. In the fifth
and six centuries, Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae and Martianus Capella’s Satyricon
(On the Wedding of Philology and Mercury and of the Seven Liberal Arts, in Nine Books)
13
are the two texts that continue the Menippean tradition. In “The Prosimetrum in the
Classical Tradition,” Jan Ziolkowski explains, “Both Martianus and Boethius constructed
texts that evidence strong dialogic tendencies, both in the simple sense of containing
much talk between characters and in the more sophisticated one of juxtaposing a
multiplicity of different viewpoints” (52). They are especially important historically,
because they are the only two texts between the sixth and fifteenth centuries linking
Classical Menippean satire to its reappearance in Western Europe during the
Renaissance. This may be because they are in Latin, whereas the previous texts were
written in Greek and would no longer have been read due to a general lack of studying
Greek in Western Europe. These two encyclopedic texts are also the reason for the
confusion between prosimetrum and Menippean satire. Because their link to earlier
Menippean satire was forgotten, scholars focusing only on medieval literature labeled
these works as prosimetrum, and they were grouped with any texts where prose and verse
appeared together. It is important to note that the overriding element of laughter, so
prominent in the classical texts, has now been downplayed, or rather, as Kirk puts it,
“Menippean satire in the Latin West degenerated into an educational literature of
encyclopedism and allegorizing” (xix). Martianus’s work was interpreted for its
scholastic value as a representation of Antiquity and Classic education. Boethius’s text,
because of its incorporation of Christianity, was interpreted and utilized as a bridge
between ancient classical philosophy and Catholic theology. In discussing various writers
of the twelfth century, Kirk observes, “None of these writers seems any longer
acquainted with Varro; it is possible that they knew Seneca or Petronius . . . but no
reference to such Menippean ancients is found in medieval saturae from the mid-sixth
14
century onward. Martianus Capella and Boethius seem, to the medieval Menippeans, to
be the starting point for the genre” (xvi). In the fifteenth century, the works of Lucian
were brought back from Italy, sparking fresh interest in Menippean satire. The rediscovery by Western Europe of many of the texts mentioned above was aided by the
invention of the printing press. Kirk highlights, “It is not overstatement to say that
Menippean satire was revived, modified, and circulated and promoted for the use of
humanists like himself principally by Desiderius Erasmus” (xxii). Whereas Menippus had
focused his humor on false learning in Greek schools, Erasmus, as a reformer, harnessed
this humor to criticize theological pride and corruption. Kirk explains, “Erasmus learned
Greek by working on Lucian, and later, when he worked on the Testaments, he
remembered Lucian’s satires and employed them against scholastics, reactionaries, and
bigoted Latinists who would not give way academically to the new learning of the ancient
languages of the Bible” (xxii). The Praise of Folly and Colloquia in turn inspired authors
such as Rabelais and Cervantes. Cristobál de Villalón’s El crotalón and Quevedo’s
Sueños are two examples of this genre in Spain; the first very much in the tradition of the
Ancients, and the second carrying more of a self-righteous tone. In Germany, Caspar
Dornau (Dornavius) published his masterpiece Amphitheater in 1619, which is a
combination of paradoxical eulogies and Menippean satire. Dornavius writes, “these
ranting jocundities speak a truth in laughing, and far sweeter is their influence on the
mind, far longer their stay there and sharper their effect, than the inculcation of morose
and vehement precepts” (Menippean Satire xxvi). His comment here is important,
because it is a summary of the essential tone of all Menippean satire, regardless of what
15
the genre targets. In order to better understand this, it is necessary to take into
consideration the importance its structure holds in fostering this humorous environment.
According to the majority of critics, one of the principal characteristics of
Menippean satire is that it appears in texts where both prose and verse are incorporated.
Some critics, basing their assessment of Menippean satire on its structure, refer to it as a
prosimetrum or versiprose. These three terms, however, are not synonymous, although
some medievalists have appropriated the label prosimetrum to describe Menippean satire
outside of Antiquity. Even though changes in Menippean satire have transpired since its
inception in ancient Greece, the term prosimetrum is an inaccurate appellation for
referring only to this genre in medieval literature. Kristin Hanson and Paul Kiparsky, in
“The Nature of Verse and its Consequences for the Mixed Form,” clarify,
Whether a narrative mixed form will be prosimetrum or versiprose depends on
what the dominant narrative form in the literary tradition is. In a literature where
the dominant form of narration is verse, narrative mixed forms will tend to be
constructed and perceived as prosimetrum. . . . Conversely, in a literature where
the dominant form of narration is prose, narrative mixed forms will tend to be
constructed and perceived as versiprose. (36)
In order to refer to a work as either prosimetrum or versiprose, it would be necessary to
examine its structure with regard to the rest of the literature of its era. And while a text
may be either prosimetrum or versiprose, this does not necessarily signify that it is
Menippean satire, because these definitions only refer to the structure of the literary work
in question. Ziolkowski indicates that the definition of Menippean satire goes beyond
structure “to denote not a particular form, in which prose and verse alternate, but rather a
tone or spirit than can be detected in what may otherwise be called satires, essays,
novellas, novels, and so forth” (46). Menippean satire carries a carnivalesque tone, or
spirit of laughter, which differentiates it from the general appellation of prosimetrum or
16
versiprose. Therefore, while Menippean satire does fit the structural definition of
prosimetrum or versiprose, not all prosimetrum or versiprose are Menippean satire.
The insistence by some critics of characterizing Menippean satire according to its
structure is nonetheless an important starting point in analyzing this genre, because the
mixing of verse and prose does effect the uniformity and tone of a text, which in turn
changes the way a text is understood. In their introduction to Prosimetrum, Karl Reichl
and Joseph Harris discuss the mixing of prose and verse in Old Irish and Old Indic texts
and observe, “Prose is seen as fluid, oral, and dependent on the art of the narrator and as a
literary medium which is written down only at a later period. The main function of prose
is narration, while the role of verse is principally to render the words of the main actors in
a story (or myth) and hence to express their attitudes, feelings and moods” (4). Although
not all authors adhere to these specific demarcations when choosing to write in verse or
prose, in most cultures prose and verse generally have been separated and assigned
definite, diametrically-opposed roles. If the two are mixed in a text, the socially-imposed
boundaries previously separating them clash. The question is, what would be a reason for
intentionally breaking with literary rules by blending these two types in the same text? In
examining prosimetrum or versiprose, Ziolkowski believes that, in works of great length,
varying between verse and prose would help facilitate memorization, for those students
of medieval grammar schools, for example. Or, in an era when texts were read out loud to
audiences, an alternation between prose and verse would help hold the audience’s
interest. He also points out that, when mixed with prose,
the verse could function much as do quotation marks in modern typography: to
demarcate unmistakably a direct speech or pronouncement, either by a person
who participates in the narrative or by the author or narrator as a form of
commentary or aside. Similarly, verse could act almost as a fancy exclamation
17
point in highlighting an episode of special importance or in intensifying drama.
(60)
The interchanging of verse and prose would enable an author to highlight particular
points, or enliven a specific passage. If a text were satirical in nature, the structure of
prosimetrum or versiprose could also offer a certain degree of protection to the author.
Ziolkowski observes, “The constant changes in form, tone, and outlook protect authors
from being held responsible for any of the opinions they voice, since readers can never be
entirely certain which views reflect the author’s standpoint and which are simply poses
that he strikes to add variety and humor” (49). The structure of Menippean satire, either
as prosimetrum or as versiprose, helps to establish an atmosphere of instability or
disorder within the literary work as well as allows the author to distance himself from the
text. Most importantly, however, this mixing of prose and verse facilitates laughter by
creating instability and contrast, which in turn effects tone and reception. Because it is a
combination of these two compositions, Menippean satire is a protean form and is
capable of invading or assimilating into almost any genre.
In examining the structure of Don Quixote, one may discover a concurrence of
verse and prose. The Preliminary Verses of Part I contain sonnets parodying those found
in Amadís de Gaula and Belianís de Grecia. Songs weave in and out of the narrative,
such as the one the goatherd Antonio sings in Part I, chapter 11 or those presented at the
wedding of Camacho in Part II, chapter 20. At the Duke and Duchess’s palace, Altisidora
serenades Don Quixote with a ballad in Part II, chapter 44, to which he responds in kind
but with a different message two chapters later. The general events of Parts I and II are
relayed by several narrators, a translator, and various characters from many different
perspectives. Adding to the multitude of voices are the intercalated stories and other
18
characters’ anecdotes. Practically every figure that enters into the plot brings with him or
her a story to relate or a spectacle of some sort, as is the case of Maese Pedro’s puppet
show. Some stories, like those of “El curioso impertinente” and the Captive’s tale, even
surpass the length of a chapter and therefore have been criticized for threatening the unity
of the regular plot due to their extended digressions.2
The epistolary form also appears in this novel, such as the letters exchanged by
the Duchess and Teresa Panza. Impromptu speeches arise, as when Don Quixote waxes
poetic about the Golden Age or when Marcela defends her choice of lifestyle in Part I,
chapter 13. And lastly, even lectures take place such as the advice given by Don Quixote
to the future governor Sancho in Part II, chapter 43. Bakhtin, in Problems of
Dostoevsky’s Poetics, explains,
The menippea characteristically makes wide use of other genres: novellas, letters,
oratory, symposia, etc.; the mixture of prose and verse diction is also
characteristic. The inserted genres are presented at various distances from the
author’s ultimate position, i.e., with various degrees of parody and
objectivization. The verse parts are almost always to a certain degree parodical.
(97)
This mixing of genres within the novel itself allows Cervantes a variety of ways to play
with tone, characterization, technique, and perspective, which all then work together to
provoke the assessment of social constructs and ideas. Bakhtin posits that Menippean
satire allows for “category-subverting intentions” as these further facilitate the
examination of predetermined paradigms. He explains, “There is formed here a new
attitude to the word as the material of literature, an attitude characteristic of the whole
dialogical line in the development of literary prose” (97). This attitude stresses flexibility
in form, coinciding with the genre’s overriding intention of extending or exaggerating
2
In Part I, “El curioso impertinente” takes up chapters 33-35, and the Captive’s tale encompasses chapters
39-40.
19
borders and horizons, whatever these may be. W. Blanchard Scott, in Scholars’ Bedlam:
Menippean Satire in the Renaissance, likewise observes that “in its development in the
Renaissance, the Menippean form begins to acquire encyclopedic proportions and to
relapse into the related habit of lengthy digressions” (36). The linearity of the narrative is
compromised via these textual detours. This is also what takes place within Don Quixote,
in that there are many deviations from the main plot. Since Cervantes chose a journey as
the principal venue, this serves as a blank canvas for many possible divergences as well
as additions to the storyline via the characters and adventures that Don Quixote and
Sancho encounter.
Another significant feature of this genre is the manner in which diction is utilized.
Scott points out, “Just as Menippean satire thumbs its nose at generic norms, so it must
grow indignant at lexical restraint or purity, choosing instead a polyglottal approach to
style” (34). The mixing of forms and styles provides instability and change. These
transitions in turn supply a flexibility of infrastructure. It is because of this flux or
hodgepodge of styles that various angles of a particular topic can be explored. In Don
Quixote, the changes in speech and word usage of the various characters allow not only
for a further fleshing-out of what they represent, but also the freedom to additionally
explore social constructs. For example, Don Quixote employs antiquated terms and
language while his squire speaks with a colloquial tongue. On the one hand, this is the
fulfillment of the Aristotelian criterion in terms of accurate representation of character,
because both come from different social classes, but on the other hand these changes in
types of speech serve to emphasize and bring to the forefront cultural and class issues
within the dialogues. There is no need to identify these two characters; their speech
20
patterns let the reader know which one is speaking. Other characters such as the Biscayan
squire and Zoraida add a foreign flavor to the novel due to their linguistic mannerisms. In
contrast with the monotone diction utilized in other genres, such as in books of chivalry,
here variety is favored.
Not only are speech acts highlighted with character-specific vocabulary in order
to reflect the multiple traits, dialects, cultures and mentalities represented in Don Quixote,
but Cervantes also invents new words. Laura Gorfkle, in Discovering the Comic in Don
Quixote, observes, “In the text of Don Quixote, we find that the scope of word play is so
extensive that it can easily be considered one of the primary features in the style of the
work” (102). There are puns, sound play, double meanings and innuendos. Terms such as
the protective-basin baciyelmo, the pseudo-island Barataria, and the wooden horse
Clavileño surface in the narrative and add to the linguistic potpourri. As Scott remarks,
“We witness the Menippean form realizing some of its most creative lexical potential. . . .
Not only do we meet many words appropriated into the vernacular from other languages
for the first time, but we even meet macaronic and invented languages, a testament to the
lack of even linguistic stability in the Menippean satire” (32). Through the volatility
which this genre imparts, whether linguistic or philosophical, an atmosphere is created
which promotes the questioning of established norms. Cervantes parodies the lofty names
found in books of chivalry, inventing monikers like Princess Micomicona or the giant
Caraculiambro from the island of Malindrania. Northrop Frye, in Anatomy of Criticism,
notes, “The Menippean satirist, dealing with intellectual themes and attitudes, shows his
exuberance in intellectual ways, by piling up an enormous mass of erudition about his
theme or in overwhelming his pedantic targets with an avalanche of their own jargon”
21
(311). An example of this occurs in Part I, chapter 1, when the narrator explains how
Alonso Quijano goes mad by reading sentences contained in chivalric romances such as
“The reason for your unreasonable treatment of my reason so enfeebles my reason that I
have reason to complain of your beauty” (58).3 Here Cervantes is parodying the writing
style of Feliciano de Silva, author of the Segunda Celestina, noted for his literary
verbosity. Words are set against each other, allowing their meanings to overlap and
confusion or incongruity to arise, which in turn foment humorous moments or situations.
This is also true of the majority of the chapter titles which anticipate each chapter.4 Some
accurately reflect their chapter’s contents, while others coax the reader into continuing to
read the story: “Of the adventure, never before seen or heard of, achieved by the valorous
Don Quixote of La Mancha, with less peril than any ever achieved by any famous knight
in all the world” (I: 20).5 In Part II, Cervantes plays a bit more with these titles. Chapter 9
begins with the initial remarks “In which is told what therein shall be seen,” and chapter
28 announces, “Of things that Benengeli says the reader will learn if he reads them with
attention.” For the alert reader, this verbal whimsy sets the stage for a comic situation; at
the same time, it makes fun of the purpose of having an epigraph in the first place,
because it is understood that they should generally be suggestive of what the chapters are
about.
3
“La razón de la sinrazón que a mi razón se hace, de tal manera mi razón enflaquece, que con razón me
quejo de la vuestra fermosura” (98).
4
Doubts have been raised as to whether Cervantes actually penned the chapter titles; however, I do not
believe either the copyists or the publisher would have had the verbal dexterity to imitate Cervantes’s
writing style in these titles as well as has been done. To cite Tom Lathrop’s opinion, “Estoy convencido de
que Cervantes mismo escribió todos los epígrafes mientras escribía su libro” (117).
5
Unless otherwise specified, all quotations in English from Don Quixote are taken from the Walter Starkie
edition.
22
Menippean satire generally appears where there is a mixing of genres, and this
often includes a borrowing of epigraphs, passages, or ideas from previous texts. By
incorporating them into the author’s original work, they augment the level of humor,
especially if the borrowed section is purposely taken out of context. While it is
impossible to know all the literature that Cervantes read, it is possible to see influences of
Menippean authors in his texts. One could interpret the inspiration of the man-turneddonkey Apuleius in Cervantes’s Berganza, who is possibly a boy transformed into a dog.
Another parallel to The Golden Ass occurs when Don Quixote thinks he is attacking
giants and they turn out to be wine skins. Additionally, Lucian’s A True History and de
Villalón’s El Crotalón are echoed in Sancho’s description of his trip on Clavileño.
In the conversations between Berganza and Cipio or between Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza, it is important to emphasize that the dialogues often become the mouthpieces
through which ideas are pondered. Likewise, in Lucian’s “Voyage to the Lower World,”
the embodiment of Menippus’ teachings takes shape in the form of the conversations the
character Menippus himself has with others. This is important because the overall
objective of Menippean satire is to take a cultural belief or ideology and inject it into a
realistic arena of life events within a text with the purpose of allowing the reader to
decide whether it is flawed or problematic. In other words, it allows for the putting into
practice of a cultural belief or rule within a literary work in order to see in what aspect it
is deficient. In the passage from Dialogue 18 that I cite below, Menippus has journeyed
across the river Acheron and, after arguing with Charon and refusing to pay him, has
asked Hermes to give him a brief tour of Hades. But Menippus has trouble recognizing
the different skeletons, as this is all that is left of the once-famous individuals:
23
MENIPPUS: Where are the handsome men and the beautiful women, Hermes?
Show me the sights, since I am a stranger here.
HERMES: I don't have the time, Menippus. But look over there to the right; there
are Hyacinthus, Narcissus, Nireus, Achilles, Tyro, Helen, Leda and in brief, all
the beauties of old.
MENIPPUS: I see only bones and skulls stripped of flesh, many of them alike.
HERMES: These bones that you seem to despise are what all the poets marvel at.
MENIPPUS: But still show me Helen; for I should not recognize her.
HERMES: This is the skull of Helen.
MENIPPUS: Was it for this then that the thousand ships were launched from all
of Greece and so many Greeks and non-Greeks fell and so many cities were
destroyed?
HERMES: But Menippus, you did not see the woman when she was alive; you
too would have said it worthwhile "to suffer sorrows so much time for such a
woman." [Iliad 3: 157.] For if one looks at flowers when they are dry and have
lost their hues, obviously they will seem ugly; but when they are in bloom and
have their color they are most beautiful.
MENIPPUS: And so I wonder at this: whether or not the Achaeans realized that
they were toiling for a thing so short-lived and so easily destroyed. (Morford,
dialogue 18)
Rather than stating outright the maxim that society places too much value on something
as fleeting as physical beauty, Lucian fashions the dialogue between Hermes and
Menippus to reflect this idea, shrouding it in comic overtones. While generally of a
humorous nature, this genre is also considered intellectual and therefore appeals to a
smaller, more educated audience. F. Ann Payne explains, in Chaucer and Menippean
Satire, that Menippean satire is a learned, scholarly form which “has as its purpose the
subversion of all claims that the intellect makes to master human experience or construct
systematic philosophies” (3). It is a crafty device that pokes fun at philosophies or
religions that claim to hold the definitive answers. Metaphorically like casting a spotlight
24
on or holding a mirror up to certain ideological beliefs of a society, this genre aims to
contemplate them to see where they err. Frye explains, “Menippean satire deals less with
people than with mental attitudes” (309). The individual character is not studied per se,
but rather the philosophy or idea he or she professes. It should be kept in mind, however,
that Menippean satire does not offer straightforward answers to its provocations and
questioning. As James F. Walter points out, “Menippean vision sees a world always in
process so it admits of no resolution within that world” (409). Unlike a fable, this is not a
didactic form. It offers a space to probe concepts and beliefs but at no time delivers a
solution or verdict to the reader. The tales of the Mulla Nasrudin, of which Cervantes
may have been familiar, are an example of the essence of Menippean satire in its most
basic form, as they are humorous vignettes poking fun at pieces of cultural issues by way
of a dialogue between Nasrudin and at least one other individual. While these vignettes
can vary in length, they are never long enough to be considered a short story, nor do they
offer a proverb or moral. They do, however, provide a twist or a new way of looking at
an issue, generally provoking laughter at the same time. I cite two of the shorter examples
here in order to provide a sense of the spirit of Menippean satire and to illustrate this
genre’s principal characteristics of a humorous tone and playful manner in treating social
constructs or beliefs:
Mulla Nasrudin used to stand in the street on market-days, to be pointed out as an
idiot. No matter how often people offered him a large and a small coin, he always
chose the smaller piece.
Once day a kindly man said to him: “Mulla, you should take the bigger coin. Then
you will have more money and people will no longer be able to make a laughingstock of you.”
25
“That might be true,” said Nasrudin, “but if I always take the larger, people will
stop offering me money to prove that I am more idiotic than they are. Then I
would have no money at all.” (Shah 52)
This scene subtly satirizes the villagers who customarily make fun of Nasrudin, whom
they understand to be the town idiot. It serves as a concise example of the flux between
mockers and mocked. It also reminds me of how Don Quixote is tested by many of the
characters, who consider him to be a mad fool and therefore are surprised when he
renders a wise or shrewd judgment. Another, shorter vignette shows a neighbor’s concern
over the Mulla’s missing donkey and Nasrudin’s curious observation. His neighbor says,
“Mulla, your donkey has disappeared.” To this, Nasrudin replies, “Thank goodness I
wasn’t on it at the time, otherwise I would have disappeared, too!” (Shah 134). This
tongue-in-cheek anecdote proffers a different, humorous way of looking at what would
generally be considered a misfortune. Like these two examples, Menippean satire should
be understood as a playful genre, provoking surprises, offering a refreshing look or a
different take on an established tradition and in general disregarding whether a topic
should be treated in a literary work with respect or not. Frequently, as the focus of this
type of satire deals with the questioning of ideals, social taboos and marginalized issues
are incorporated into the dialogues or narrative. A good illustration of this is the lavish
banquet of Trimalchio in Petronius’s Satyricon, where the discussion amongst the guests
touches on topics such as their neighbors’ habits, education and illiteracy with regard to
social clout, impersonations, tombstone inscriptions, and stories about a werewolf and
witches. The feast of Camacho’s wedding, in Part II of Don Quixote, shares several
things in common with Trimalchio’s banquet. Both are described as overtly bountiful,
with depictions of excessive amounts of food and drink. Both entertain various dialogues,
26
with an arrangement of characters filtering into and out of the plot. Camacho’s wedding
also includes an interpretive play, acted out by metaphorical characters including Cupid,
Interest, and Poetry. While the feast in Satyricon takes up several chapters, Camacho’s is
a shorter version with the overriding focus, construed in part through the dialogue
between Sancho and his master, concerning whether the rich Camacho has more of a
right to marry Quiteria, even if the poor Basilio loves her more. At one point, Sancho
sums up this ongoing issue by remarking to Don Quixote:
“A fig for the talents of Basilio! What you have is what you’re worth. As my
grandmother used to say, there are only two families in the world, the Haves and
the Havenots; and she always stuck to the Haves and to this day, master, people
prefer to feel the pulse of Have than of Know. An ass covered with gold looks
better than a horse with a packsaddle. So, once more I say that I stick by
Camacho, from whose posts come the plenteous skimmings of geese and hens.”
(670-71)
Here, Sancho serves as the mouthpiece of his culture, in that the people are defined by
what they have and therefore should marry for possessions. His philosophizing comes
into contrast with the actions of Basilio, who ends up marrying Quiteria through
ingenuity on his part. Echoing the lively dialogues and ostentation found in the Satyricon,
the events surrounding Camacho’s wedding in turn allow for the experimentation of
ideologies as well as personal beliefs, reflecting Menippean overtones.
In the prologue of the first part of Don Quixote, the fictionalized author is
reminded by his friend, “. . . this book of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy the
authority and influence that books of chivalry have in the world and among the
masses. . .” (47). Although this is the supposed purpose of Cervantes’s novel, what he
does is more than just parody the formulas of chivalric honor and chivalric love, as
endorsed in that type of literature. The values and ideals espoused in chivalry are brought
27
to life by the character Don Quixote and are tested through his encounters with everyday
situations once he leaves the safety of his library. In chapter 4, for example, during his
first sally, Don Quixote meets the poor shepherd boy Andrés and his master Juan
Haldudo. Don Quixote happens upon them in the woods, where Andrés is tied to an oak
tree and is receiving a lashing from his master for having lost several sheep. According to
the chivalric code, any knight who comes across the persecution of a defenseless
individual or someone in distress becomes responsible for re-establishing order and
righting any wrongs. Because he considers himself a knight, Don Quixote interrupts this
punishment in order to defend Andrés. After Don Quixote has judged the situation, he
demands that Juan pay Andrés his missing wages, to which Juan promises. In the books
of chivalry, Juan Haldudo would have kept his promise, Andrés would have been freed,
and Don Quixote would have been considered all the more noble for having resolved a
disagreement. Unlike what takes place in chivalric romances, Don Quixote actually
makes things worse by further infuriating Juan Haldudo and then leaving Andrés to his
master’s wrath. Don Quixote, following the code of chivalry and ingenuously assuming
the master will carry out his promise to free and pay Andrés, adds to the damage rather
than alleviates harm or corrects an unfair practice. By parodying this ideal of courtly
justice, Cervantes allows for an examination by the reader of the conventions of chivalry.
In this way, it becomes possible to see how they, when placed in a realistic situation,
prove to be not only antiquated and naive, but also harmful. For Bakhtin, the most
important characteristic of Menippean satire is the testing out of an idea. He states,
We emphasize that the fantastic serves here not in the positive embodiment of the
truth, but in the search after the truth, its provocation and, most importantly, its
testing . . . It must be further emphasized that we have in mind the testing of an
idea, of the truth, not the testing of a specific individual or social-typical human
28
character. The testing of the wise man is the testing of his philosophical position
in the world, not of one or another trait of his character, independent of that
position. (94; italics in text).
The idea being tested in the episode of Andrés is the plausibility and value of the
chivalric code of honor, which is glorified in the feudal system and in books of chivalry.
Bakhtin refers to a wise man and his philosophical position and in Don Quixote this
would be the protagonist himself, who has grown so learned in the realm of chivalric
romances that the medieval principles behind knight errantry become not only his
philosophy but, as a result, his solution to the world’s problems. Bakhtin emphasizes that
it is not the individual, in this case the character Don Quixote, but rather the concept that
undergoes examination. F. Ann Payne further explains that the Menippean satirist
“questions . . . not deviations from an ideal standard but the possibility of ideal standards”
(5). It is not so much Don Quixote himself who is parodied and satirized within the novel,
but the chivalric notions and ideals that he puts forth as exemplary standards in response
to the situations he encounters. The narrative provides a space where the idea of chivalry
takes shape, in the form of Don Quixote, who at the same time is forced to confront the
textual realities of human nature within a social construct.
It is important to understand that the mechanism of Menippean satire projects an
idea or philosophy, as opposed to a character, into the textual arena so as to parody or
make fun of the idea itself. Oftentimes, this is done by a character that more closely
resembles a caricature or type than a human being. Don Quixote’s madness, in the form
of his fantastic visions and illogical philosophizing on the traditions of knight errantry, is
what is parodied in the novel. But this characteristic of madness is only a part of his
personality. Therefore, Don Quixote should be understood as a novelistic character rather
29
than a Menippean caricature, even though his madness reflects Menippean overtones as
explained above.
The chivalric love theme is integral to the chivalric romances, in which the knight
and his love are separated and he must overcome tremendous odds to be once again
reunited with her. In Part I, chapter 1, the narrator explains that, after Don Quixote has
found his armor and named his horse, “he felt that nothing was wanting but a lady of
whom to be enamored, for a knight-errant who was loveless was a tree without leaves and
fruit, a body without a soul” (60-61). Don Quixote, believing the concept of a love
interest to be fundamental to his motivation as a knight as well as the keystone to his
honor, quickly sets out to create Dulcinea del Toboso. Cervantes’s parody here is twofold. For starters, in the beginning Dulcinea is an artificial love interest, since Don
Quixote is merely utilizing this construct to fulfill a requirement he sees as essential to
his mission of living as a chivalric knight. The fact that he is not in love with anyone and
must invent this damsel, which he does by picking a neighboring country lass and
renaming her, is an ironic twist of the notion of courtly love. Amadís de Gaula and
Oriana, for example, are childhood sweethearts. Belianis of Greece swears eternal
servitude to the princess Florisbella of Babylon, whom he knows. Don Quixote, however,
does not share any type of relationship previous to the start of the novel with his
Dulcinea, or rather Aldonza Lorenzo, because he knows her only by sight; hence he is
substituting the concept of true love, so glorified in chivalric romances, for the fulfillment
of a prerequisite. It is through the reverse of this chivalric formula that Cervantes utilizes
parody to focus on the absurdity of this motivational tool found in the books of chivalry.
Consequently, the social structure of chivalric love as a unique motivator is parodied.
30
In Part II, Don Quixote’s is forced to be at the receiving end of a similar fabrication. At
the palace of the Duke and Duchess, Don Quixote endures what he believes to be a
lovesick lady-in-waiting, Altisidora, who pines for his favor. After a few episodes of
fainting, love songs, and other similar strategies of pursuit on the part of Altisidora, Don
Quixote finally confides to the Duchess that if Altisidora only had something to do with
her life she would be cured of these maladies (552). What Don Quixote does not know is
that Altisidora has staged her love for him, as a spectacle for the other characters. It is
ironic that Don Quixote, who has created his Dulcinea and now loves and pines for her, is
unable to appreciate Altisidora’s anguish, albeit fake, over his disdain. Once again and
this time ironically through the mouth of a character suffering from the same fabricated
malady, Cervantes juxtaposes the ideals of courtly love with the practical values of
reality. It is as if Don Quixote had unwittingly seen himself in a mirror and commented
on the ridiculousness of that image’s aspirations. This parody of chivalric love reflects
the influence of Menippean satire. Bakhtin states that within this genre “ultimate
philosophical positions are put to the test. The menippea seeks to present a person’s
ultimate, decisive words and actions, each of which contains the whole person and his
whole life in its entirety” (95). Here, Don Quixote is witness to a fabrication of true love,
similar to his construction of Dulcinea. Without Dulcinea, Don Quixote would feel
immobilized. Due to what he has chosen to value, books of chivalry, he believes he
would not be a true knight errant without her because a love interest is the key to a
knight’s motivation. In Part I, chapter 30, when Dorotea plays the role of Princess
Micomicona, she offers herself in marriage if Don Quixote is willing to conquer the giant
Pandafilando. When his master initially declines her offer, Sancho attempts to change his
31
mind, thinking him foolish to pass up an opportunity such as this one. Don Quixote
answers him,
Do you not know, rascally knave, that if it were not for the valor [Dulcinea]
infuses into my arm, I would not have the strength to kill a flea? Tell me, . . . who
do you think has won this kingdom and cut off the head of this giant and made
you marquess (for all this I consider already accomplished) if it be not the power
of Dulcinea using my arm as the instrument of her deeds? She fights and conquers
in me, and I live and breathe and have my life and being in her. (306)
Unlike Avellaneda’s Don Quixote, who is quick to exchange Dulcinea for Barbara,
Cervantes’s protagonist remains steadfast in his loyalty to Dulcinea. It would be easy for
him to replace the vision he has created for the existent Princess Micomicona, but he is
incapable of considering this, because the definition of his being is completely tied up in
his love for Dulcinea. In contrast to this ultimate representation of love, by consciously
parodying Don Quixote with a false pretext of love, Altisidora is defined by her actions
as superficial as well as disrespectful. Don Quixote believes in his ideals, even if they are
based on a faulty logic. This subtle juxtaposition reinforces Don Quixote’s love for his
creation through Altisidora’s mock performance. She satirizes unrequited love, while
Cervantes, through Don Quixote, parodies courtly love.
The majority of these incidents in which chivalric ideals collide with reality are
presented in a humorous manner in the novel. This is especially important in the
Menippea, as it is a genre of laughter and holds many carnivalesque traits. Bakhtin
considers the characteristic of the carnivalesque imperative to Menippean satire, citing
laughter as carrying “the specific weight of the comic element” (93). Humor, through
laughter, holds a dual purpose. On the one hand, it allows for distance from the situation
in order to better inspect an idea, while on the other it is cohesive and revitalizing
because it provides a manner in which the reader can connect with the characters.
32
Cervantes also experiments with the limitations between dreams or visions and
history or truth. In the Cave of Montesinos, for instance, Don Quixote experiences what
he believes to be real-life encounters with Montesinos and with Dulcinea and her
damsels. Both Sancho and Basilio’s cousin think Don Quixote has fallen asleep and
dreamt all this. The concept of time is also brought into the conversation, when the
cousin asks how it is possible that so many adventures happened to Don Quixote when
only a little more than an hour had passed. Don Quixote answers, “That cannot be, . . . for
night came when I was down there and then morning and again a night and a morning
three times, so that, by my reckoning, I have been three days in these remote regions
hidden from the upper world” (691). Sancho solves this incongruity by explaining, “My
master must be right, . . . for since everything that has happened to him is by
enchantment, perhaps what seems an hour to us would seem three days and nights down
there” (691-92). It is never made clear in the novel what really happened, possibly
because Cervantes is intentionally blurring the parameters surrounding visions and
reality. Similar to the continual overlapping of madness and sanity, Cervantes
provocatively confuses the interface between fiction and fact, invention and truth, and
even story and history frequently throughout the novel. Issues are never black and white
in real life, and here Cervantes articulates the ever-changing conditions of humanity.
The spirit of Menippean satire can also be injected into another genre, generally
serving as a parody of that genre. In the Preliminary Verses of Part I, for example, there
are Menippean overtones in Cervantes’s parody of the solemn sonnets that normally
precede a book of chivalry. In the first prologue, the friend suggests the fictionalized
author invent the “sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies that are missing from the beginning
33
and that should be written by weighty and titled personages” (44), rather than formulate
the typical prologue that is found in illustrious books, which is filled with erudite quotes
from famous authors. Scott explains, “In its outward form the Menippean satire may
assume various shapes: as a mock philosophical symposium, a learned treatise on a
foolish topic . . . , a mock academic lecture, a dream vision or trip to the underworld, or a
mock romance” (36). In other words, it is capable of permeating and parodying other
genres. The prologue in Part I serves as an example of a mock prologue, in that it spoofs
the seriousness and formality of other prologues found in literary works. This type of
parodying of a genre also occurs in Don Quixote’s invention of Dulcinea and how,
although he firmly believes in and falls in love with his invention, it is nonetheless a
mock romance for Sancho, the narrators, the translator, and even the reader, who laugh at
Don Quixote because they do not see Dulcinea but rather Aldonza Lorenzo. In Part II,
chapters 42 and 43, when Don Quixote gives Sancho advice in preparation for his role as
governor, this is a solemn moment in the text and the master’s counsel is worthy of
recognition. However, this scene can also be read from a humorous angle as a mock
lecture, if the reader keeps in mind that Sancho is a mere peasant and that, while the
advice is genuine, the situation is ironic because a peasant in sixteenth-century Spain
would not be the target of a lecture of this sort. It would be impossible for him to rule
over others as a governor given the socioeconomic parameters of the current society. At
the same time, however, if the reader do initially read this scene as a mock lecture, they
are in for a surprise in chapters 45, 47, 49 and 51, when Sancho does rise to the occasion
and judges cases with the same wisdom and poise as King Solomon. Cervantes plays
34
with the perception of counseling and sets the readers up to be laughed at, once Sancho
the peasant governor performs his new duties so well.
Another characteristic with which Bakhtin defines Menippean satire deals with
the choice of topics incorporated into the text. He writes, “All violations of the generally
accepted, ordinary course of events and of the established norms of behavior and
etiquette, including the verbal,” in the form of scandalous scenes or behavior, are to be
expected within this genre (96). Considering that Menippean satire’s objective is to
playfully muse over society’s rules or ideologies by focusing on more marginalized
topics or those considered less socially appropriate, this is more easily facilitated. In Don
Quixote, these topics include those of a corporeal nature, such as the graphic rendition of
when Don Quixote and Sancho both vomit on each other in Part I, chapter 18. Another
instance occurs later on in chapter 20, during the adventure of the fulling mills, when
Sancho relieves himself at the side of Don Quixote because he is too scared to let go of
his master. With regard to etiquette, for example, the Inquisition took umbrage at
Cervantes’s depiction of a mad Don Quixote fashioning a rosary out of his dirty shirttails
in the Sierra Morena (I: 26) because it was construed to be sacrilegious. Since these
cultural taboos are placed in a humorous setting, this allows the reader to distance him or
herself and laugh away what might otherwise be interpreted as an unpleasant passage. At
the same time, by choosing to focus on these topics, Cervantes seems to be carefully
teasing his audience, because these episodes are heightened in humor by the fact that they
deal with subjects that are customarily marginalized or withheld from polite conversation.
While perhaps not as integral a component to Menippean satire as those discussed
above, and one only mentioned in passing by Bakhtin and Frye, is the concept of journey.
35
In the majority of works representing this genre, there exists some sort of excursion or
movement from one physical place to another. This is true in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass
as well as in Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, two Menippean satires par
excellence according to Bakhtin. It also occurs in the Satyricon, in Lucian’s A True Story,
in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, in Mikhail
Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, and in Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. As with
these literary works, the majority of texts considered by critics to be Menippean satires
incorporate some form of travel in their plots. Nonetheless, in studying this genre,
Bakhtin focuses on specific locations, in particular heaven, earth and hell (95), but he
never mentions the actual traveling which occurs while the characters are moving from
one place to the next. Along with the other Menippean satires mentioned above, the
journeying which takes place in Don Quixote is accompanied by dialogues. It is my
speculation that traveling may be a necessary element to this genre, as movement
between fixed locations allows for the same type of instability as mentioned above with
regard to diction and to the questioning of cultural beliefs. The character or characters
physically leave a city, for instance, and therefore leave behind society and its beliefs
only to encounter new approaches to life.
In chapter 2, I explore the mechanisms of journey and humor with regard to how
they effect a text. Now, however, it is also important to recognize how journey functions
as an element of Menippean satire, provoking an examination of culture or customs
through a change of venue. Don Quixote serves as an excellent example, as the majority
of its plot revolves around travel. In addition, a great part of its narrative is based on
dialogues between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, which take place while they trek
36
through different parts of Spain. After stressing the importance of the dialogue within a
Menippean satire, Bakhtin affirms, “The menippea often includes elements of social
utopia which are introduced in the form of dreams or journeys to unknown lands. . . . The
utopian element combines organically with all the other elements of the genre” (97).
While Sancho Panza and Don Quixote do not travel to foreign lands, they do discover
worlds which had previously been unknown to them and it is on both of their agendas to
invent or discover their own paradises: Don Quixote holds as his mission the
reinstallation of chivalric, if not utopian, values, as can be seen not only in his desire to
relate to the world in the same way as described in books of chivalry but also in his
speech on the Golden Age in Part I, chapter 11. Sancho’s aim is to find heaven in the
form of reimbursement for his services rendered as squire; in particular, he wants an
island to govern.
But more importantly, in addition to the protagonists’ quest, the dialogues which
occur during their travels often reflect a questioning of ideas and beliefs. One instance
when this occurs is the dialogue which takes place as Don Quixote and Sancho begin
their first sally together in Part I, chapter 7. Through their conversation, an important
issue is raised which tests the feudal structure included in books of chivalry and
highlights its limitations. Sancho reminds Don Quixote of his promise to award him an
island as payment for his services as squire. The subject raised here concerns whether a
knight was obliged to pay a squire, something which was highly unlikely in a feudal state
and definitely did not appear in the books of chivalry. In this sense, the dialogue which
takes place while they travel touches on the debate between medieval socioeconomic
values and the newer capitalistic mentality with regard to labor and economy.
37
In discussing the encyclopedic, a characteristic cited earlier in this chapter with
regard to the definition of Menippean satire and its cataloguing of ideas, Frye mentions
the concept of a ‘marvelous journey’ as a mechanism that would enable a continual
supplementing of the narrative via detours or deviations from the main plot (97). Because
he does not go further with his analysis regarding this narrational device, it seems to me
that both he and Bakhtin overlooked or took this feature and its capabilities to provoke
change for granted. The majority of Menippean satires that the two critics list include
some form of journey in their plots. This type of device would also correspond to the
concepts of dissection and disorder that are prevalent in this genre, since the movement
signified by transition incorporates yet a further instability in the text. Just as the forms
and diction continuously ebb and flow in a Menippean satire, so it should be emphasized
that traveling adds to the same precariousness which allows for a continual examination
of cultures, habits, or ideologies.
A journey from one place to another also welcomes a variation in scenery and
social strata. On the road, Don Quixote and Sancho encounter characters from all
economic ranks and from various parts of Spain and the world. They meet religious
individuals, such as friars and curates. There are actors, singers and musicians, such as
the shepherd Antonio and then later Sancho’s exiled neighbor Ricote. They free a chain
gang, have a run-in with officers of the Holy Brotherhood, and then later meet the thief
Roque Guinart. Sancho and Don Quixote encounter the gentlemen and women who are
living in a type of pastoral Arcadia, intent on creating their own utopia. They are offered
lodging by gentlemen and women, including Don Diego de Miranda, the Duke and
Duchess, and the Viceroy Don Antonio. They consort with shepherds, soldiers, and even
38
a woman, Dorotea, disguised as a man. All this occurs while they are on the road and
adds to the atmosphere of exploration of realities as, at each turn, they are presented with
new aspects of their culture.
The blending of an unusual assortment of caricatures and occupations in Don
Quixote and Sancho’s travels affords the reader a vision of many social elements mixed
into one: the bucolic socializes with the urban, the virtuous intermingles with criminal
elements and the base associates with the lofty. It is in their journeying specifically that
these components are allowed to interact with one another. Again, this contrasting of
differences, of the various aspects of a society, furnishes an atmosphere for probing the
very beliefs which make up that society. Bakhtin observes, “The organic combination of
philosophical dialog, lofty symbolism, fantastic adventure and underworld naturalism is a
remarkable characteristic of the menippea” (94). And I add that it is necessary to
recognize the importance of the mechanism of travel in order to more fully appreciate,
along with dialogue, how this literary device provides spaces in the narrative in which to
test social constructs and beliefs.
A clarification should be made at this time regarding the differences between
Menippean satire and the novel as genre, especially with regard to Don Quixote.
Returning to the issue of structure, there has been confusion among critics over whether
certain texts are novels or are representations of Menippean satire, based on their
construction. With regard to the novel in particular, Frye quips, “Most critical efforts to
handle such a generic term . . . are chiefly interesting as examples of the psychology of
rumor” (13). Without citing all the various critics who have set down in writing their
definitions of the novel, I believe most would agree that it is a fictional narrative written
39
mainly in prose and of greater length and development than its cousin, the short story. A
novel can vary widely in terms of narrative technique, tone, and organization. It can also
incorporate other genres into its folds and this is where the confusion arises between
labeling a text either a novel or Menippean satire when humor is present. One important
aspect of Menippean satire, and why it lends itself well to the novel, is its flexible
structure. According to Bakhtin, Menippean satire can invade any form, although it
predominantly occurs in literature which combines prose and verse, as mentioned earlier.
He explains, “The genre of the menippea at the same time possesses great external
plasticity and the remarkable ability to absorb related smaller genres and to penetrate as a
component part into other large genres” (98). It is protean in the sense that its external
structure can shift to conform to other genres in which it appears. For instance,
Menippean satire can stand on its own, as in Lucian’s A True Story. It can completely
overwhelm another genre, such as in Carroll’s book Alice in Wonderland or Quevedo’s
sanctimonious Sueños. And it can transform a part of another genre, such as in
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, where it mixes with the novel. I believe Don
Quixote falls into this last category. In Cervantes’s text, the groundwork is laid for
Menippean satire through the combination of prose and verse parodying various ideas
and social beliefs. Nonetheless, it should be interpreted first and foremost as a novel.
Don Quixote is considered by many scholars to be the first European modern
novel and it is plausible to speculate that the fragmentation of the main plot into a variety
of subplots, a characteristic shared with Menippean satire, not only encouraged forays
into other subjects not previously represented in literature but was key to the
development of the novel in general. It is this idea of the appearance of encyclopedic
40
works during the Renaissance, with special reference made to Robert Burton’s Anatomy
of Melancholy, which causes Frye to change the name of this genre from Menippean
satire to anatomy because “the form uses the method of ‘dissection or analysis’ to make
an encyclopedic survey of human society under a general diagnostic category” (28). It is
a form, according to Frye, which promotes a cataloguing of ideas or of examining various
facets of life and as such caters to the image of anatomy under observation. This is only
partially true in Don Quixote, if we compare it to texts such as Burton’s Anatomy or
Dornavius’s Amphitheater. While Cervantes catalogues a variety of experiences and
different characters throughout his novel, he works them all into the plot rather than
listing them like individual vignettes, in comparison to the Menippean works considered
encyclopedic. For me, this is one of the key points in understanding that Don Quixote is
more a novel than Menippean satire. While it does incorporate different genres, unlike in
an undiluted Menippean satire there is cohesion between these genres and they come
together to form a complete backdrop or stage via which the characters enter, exit, and
above all, develop into entities with individual personalities, rather than remain character
types.
At the beginning of his analysis of genres, Frye very clearly delineates between
the romance, novel, autobiography, and Menippean satire. In defining them, he does not
initially discuss possible overlapping between the genres. His manner of classifying them
stems in part from contrasting one with the other and deciding whether they are
extroverted, introverted, intellectual, or personal, based on their audiences. Menippean
satire, he states, is intellectual and extroverted, which means it would appeal to a more
scholarly reader. The novel is personal and extroverted because its focus is on personal
41
relationships plus it is more available and of interest to the mainstream (308). It is after
he has juxtaposed the four genres that he considers how they intermingle in major literary
works. According to him, Don Quixote is a text which includes his definitions of
Menippean satire and the novel. It is saturated with literary references, appealing to a
scholarly reader, but at the same time contains a lot of puns, popular proverbs and other
word plays which make the novel accessible to the general public. For this reason, there
is an overlapping of Menippean satire and the novel, because the former interests more of
an intellectual reader and the latter, a popular, or personal, audience. What this means is
that Cervantes’s text, while mainly pleasing to the public in its representations of
individuals within their society, at times makes references or presents episodes in such a
manner that it probes scholarly or philosophical issues and therefore appeals to an
educated reader. Frye states, “The novelist sees evil and folly as social diseases, but the
Menippean satirist sees them as diseases of the intellect, as a kind of maddened pedantry
which the philosophus gloriosus at once symbolizes and defines” (309). In Don Quixote,
we see a mixing of these two positions. Chivalric romances and their code of honor are
not treated in Don Quixote as stemming from a society infected with these dubious ideals.
Instead, Don Quixote embodies this ‘philosophus gloriosus’ whose madcap literalism
with regard to chivalric code is put to trial in the text. His extreme idealism regarding
knight errantry is interpreted as madness and laughed at, but for this same reason the
other characters are cast in a cynical light and likewise judged by their actions. Their
desire to mock Don Quixote can be interpreted as a social cynicism. This is constantly
contrasted with Don Quixote’s naïve idealism throughout the text. Don Quixote,
therefore, embodies the overlapping of Menippean and novelistic elements, because
42
within the text there is the parody of the perfection promoted by the books of chivalry
while at the same time what could be called social cynicism or disparagement of this
perfection is showcased.
This contrasting of idealism with social cynicism reflects a joining together of two
opposing elements. The structure of juxtaposing too differing issues is linked to the role
reversal depicted in Carnival, because the contrasting of opposites provokes instability
within the text. As Scott explains, “The Menippean satire . . . was a form of carnivalized
literature in which the satirist rejects any absolute or ideological presentation of human
experience” (27). Menippean satire mocks or pokes fun at any belief system portrayed in
society as ideal. Perfection, or the perfect answer, as it may be presented in theology,
philosophy or books of chivalry, becomes the object of this genre’s parodying. Many
times, the manner in which this is parodied is by contrasting it with an inverse, or
opposite, characteristic. When Lucian has Menippus comment on the skull of Helen, in
the passage mentioned earlier from “Voyage to the Lower World,” the idea of supreme
beauty is contrasted with the ultimate repulsiveness associated with Death. Due to this
contrast, the image of Helen’s skull signifies both peerless beauty, because society has
immortalized Helen’s visage, and stark ugliness, because Death has stripped her of any
distinguishing physical attributes. It is through this contrast that irony surfaces. Because
this genre contains a carnivalesque undercurrent, it is an objective of Menippean satire to
play with concepts or characteristics that Western logic defines as binary opposites. By
contrasting ideas or notions that we have been taught to read as contrary or dissimilar,
Menippean satire brings this classification to the forefront and guides the reader in
questioning the limits of an understood system of logic. Is black really the opposite of
43
white? Is an individual ever completely sane, or ever completely crazy? Is there another
way to observe life, other than via a binary system of opposites? Menippean satire strives
to muddy the waters, so to speak, with regard to this system of logic. As already stated,
perfection is the target and motivation of this genre. In Don Quixote there is no correct
plan of action or ultimate guideline on living as provided by the author or narrators, but
rather an arena where certain elements mix, react to one another and foster new events.
James F. Walter observes, “An essential characteristic differentiating the Menippean
satire from the novel is its attempt to reach the extreme limits of human experience—
physical and intellectual, farcical and serious, obscene and sacred, comic and tragic—at
the same time” (395). This happens many times through Don Quixote, where two
elements which normally would be understood as discordant or divergent, are allowed to
interact. Take, for instance, the famous baciyelmo. The word represents a fusion of the
images of the peerless helmet of Mambrino and the barber’s basin, a receptacle of
discarded corporal products such as blood and hair. Rocinante is another example. In the
narrator’s description of Rocinante in chapter 1 of Part I, the poor horse had “más cuartos
que un real.” A cuarto was a type of coin, lesser in value than a real. At the same time,
cuarto was a disease affecting the hooves of horses.6 The narrator, tongue-in-cheek, is
playing with the concept of money (in that Rocinante was worth more than a real) but is
really saying he’s in worse shape (because of the disease) than a real horse (Gorfkle 101).
He is a horse of immense worth to Don Quixote, but of hardly any material worth when
compared to Babieca or Bucephalus. Another case in point is when, in the Sierra Morena,
6
“Abertura longitudinal larga y profunda, que anormalmente se produce en las partes laterales de los
cascos de las caballerías,” Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, 12 Dec. 2004 <http://www.rae.es/>.
44
Don Quixote fashions a rosary out of his soiled shirt, allowing for the sacred and the
obscene to merge in one action.
The contrasting of opposites allows for the creation of a new concept, such as
what occurs linguistically with an oxymoron. An example of this also occurs when
juxtaposing the two protagonists. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza themselves, when
together, epitomize this contrast and come together to form a unique entity. They are a
pair of opposites, both physically as well as mentally. One is tall, lean and educated; the
other is short, heavy and illiterate. One believes in chivalric fantasies and is motivated to
bring them to life, only to relinquish this dream to death at the end of Part II; the other
begins as no-nonsense and down-to-earth, but then succumbs to the temptation of fantasy
by denying his predetermined socioeconomic status when he rises to become governor, if
only for a short while. Bakhtin writes, “The menippea is fond of playing with sharp
transitions and changes, ups and downs, rises and falls, unexpected comings together of
distant and divided things” (97). An accurate embodiment of what Bakhtin is referring to
here, this constant contrasting and interplay between the two characters has lead to what
many critics, following Salvador de Madariaga, have classified as the quixotization of
Sancho and the sanchification of Don Quixote.
We see this same thing also to a certain extent in the representations of the lofty
and the base within the text: the ideal chivalric world which Don Quixote continuously
fights to recreate is repeatedly in contrast with the misfortunes he is put through by his
various physical and emotional pummelings. He is humiliated, beaten, misinterpreted,
made fun of, and even stoned while attempting to apply a chivalric process to an event
that takes place in the narrative reality of the text. It is through his personage that the
45
heavenly ideals of chivalry collide with the infernal suffering of reality. He is the medium
through which these two opposites mix. This is also a way of understanding how Don
Quixote can project both madness and sanity. The rational madman, el cuerdo loco, often
puzzles the other characters as well as the reader, because they cannot understand how
someone so insane as to charge windmills can later proffer such sound judgments and
likewise how someone so learned can so fervently argue the benefits of knight errantry.
The characters, through their reactions, seem to imply that there is a contradiction in Don
Quixote’s actions, because he sometimes acts mad and other times acts lucidly. This was
the main argument several eighteenth-century critics made in favor of Avellaneda’s
version. An example is Alain René Le Sage, the French writer who first translated
Avellaneda’s version of Part II in 1716. In his introduction to this work, Le Sage
compares Cervantes’s protagonists with Avellaneda’s. He writes that, although
Cervantes’s Part I met with great success,
comme il negligeoit d’en donner la continuation, un Auteur Arragonois, appellé
Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda, en sit paroistre une en 1614, qui ne fut pas mal
reçuë. . . . Il a fort bien soutenu le caractère de Don Quichotte. Il ne le perd point
de veuë: il en fait un Chevalier errant, qui est toujours grave, et dont toutes les
paroles sont magnifiques, pompeuses et fleuries. Pour son Sancho, il faut
demeurer d’accord qu’il est excellent, et plus original même que celui de
Cervantes. . . . Le caractère de l’autre Sancho n’est pas si uniforme: tantôt il lui
échappe des traits d’ingenuité, et tantôt il tient des discours malins, dont on voit
bien qu’il sent toute la malice, qui sont quelquefois trop relevés pour un païsan, et
trop sensés pour un valet qui est la duppe des folles visions de son Maîstre. . . . Il
y a une difference sensible entre les deux Sancho: celui de Cervantes veut souvent
faire le plaisant, et ne l’est pas; celui d’Avellaneda l’est presque toûjours, sans
vouloir l’estre. (ã ij- ã iij)7
7
“as he is negligent with his sequel, an Aragonese author, named Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda,
published one in 1614, which was not badly received. … He had truly established the character of Don
Quixote. He does not lose sight of his character: he portrays him as a knight errant, who is always solemn,
and whose every word is magnificent, grandiloquent, and ornate. As for his Sancho, we must confess that
he is excellent, and is more original than the one of Cervantes. … The character of the other Sancho is not
uniform: sometimes he lets slip aspects of gullibility, and at other times he holds cunning discourse, in
which his maliciousness is revealed, that is sometimes too rich for a peasant, and too thoughtful for a
manservant who is the dupe of the mad visions of his Master. . . . There is a perceptible difference between
46
For Le Sage, Cervantes was inferior to Avellaneda due to his lack of consistency with
character description. For Le Sage, Don Quixote should always act the knight errant,
being solemn and grandiloquent. Anthony Close observes, “One would hardly expect to
find a case of madness like Don Quixote’s if one visited a madhouse; rather, his madness
appears initially as a literary device designed to set the wheels of parody in motion” (23).
This is definitely one of the effects of the madness of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, as
opposed to Avellaneda’s, and in chapter 3 I analyze these differences more in depth with
regard to carnivalesque versus political motives. But it is important to point out here that
this mixing of supposedly opposite personality traits in Don Quixote is intentional on
Cervantes’s part and goes beyond Close’s assertion that this madness is principally a
technique of parody. Bakhtin writes,
What might be called moral-psychological experimentation appears for the first
time in the Menippea: the representation of . . . insanity of all sorts . . ., split
personalities, unrestrained daydreaming, unusual dreams, passions bordering on
insanity, suicide, etc. . . . Dreams, daydreams and insanity destroy the epic, tragic
integrity of a man and his fate: in him the possibilities of another man and another
life are revealed, he loses his finalizedness and singleness of meaning, he ceases
to coincide with himself. (96)
This mixing of reality with fantasy is embodied in the character of Don Quixote, but it is
different from the other forms of madness we find in other novels, which in turn makes it
appear to be more of a literary device, to refer back to Anthony Close’s comment on the
previous page. But it is through the daydreams stemming from the chivalric books he has
read that Alonso Quijano is motivated to live beyond his established role in society. He
becomes the passionate individual who is unafraid to take on the world in order to right
the two Sanchos: Cervantes’s often wants to be pleasing, and is not; Avellaneda’s almost always is, without
trying to be” (my translation).
47
wrongs and instill chivalric values. He sees giants where others see windmills and wine
bags. He falls in love and swears undying loyalty to a fictitious woman. He risks life and
limb to confront presumed kidnappers and the devil’s sorcerers, like the Biscayan squire
in Part I, chapter 9 and the clergymen accompanying the casket in Part I, chapter 19,
respectively. What is interpreted as madness is juxtaposed against Don Quixote’s bouts
of sane judgments and wisdom by characters and readers who are perplexed by his
duality. Again, for them, a character should always remain relatively the same in a novel,
whereas in Menippean satire the focus is on what the character says or does rather than
on who he or she is. As mentioned previously, this genre generally employs character
types rather than developing, psychological figures. The novel, on the other hand,
concentrates on the characters themselves and how they interact and progress or mature
throughout the narrative. Ardis Nelson, in Cabrera Infante in the Menippean Tradition,
explains that where a novel deals with “men, their personalities and characters,” in
Menippean satire the characters are “stylized, being representatives of a given set of
ideas” (xxv-vi). Echoing Frye, Nelson continues, “The novelist essentially transfers
theories to personal relationships, but the Menippean satirist intellectualizes and obscures
freely, often producing caricatures” (xxvi). By utilizing both genres, Cervantes can mix
their approaches, allowing for fluctuations in his characters which would be interpreted
as incongruities to someone such as Le Sage, but which, when understood within the
context of Menippean satire, demonstrate Cervantes’s capability to create multifaceted,
diverse characters as opposed to the vapid, predictable characters found in Avellaneda’s
version. The focus is not on whether the characters maintain their original nature,
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something which critics such as Lesage did not understand and instead interpreted as
inaccuracies on the part of Cervantes.
On a related note, it has been pointed out by critics such as Antonio Barbagallo
that the stereotyping or typifying of characters does occur in the novel. In “Sancho no es,
se hace,” Barbagallo argues that Sancho is stereotyped as an unintelligent glutton by the
other characters, even though he is rarely found eating to excess and, although he jumbles
proverbs and does talk a lot, he also frequently makes sage observations. This typecasting is performed by the narrators, translator and many of the other characters. It is as
if they were prejudging him based on his physical appearance, in that his short, squat
physique resembles the personage of the Buffoon found in works of theater. Unless the
reader is careful to construct his or her image of Sancho based only on his words and
deeds, it is easy to misjudge Sancho and view him more as a stereotype or caricature and
less as a unique character with his own personality. In Part II, Sancho reacts to the way
he is portrayed in Avellaneda’s version. In chapter 49, he defends himself to Don
Jerónimo and Don Juan, describing himself as “simple and droll, but not a glutton or a
drunkard” (952). Three chapters later, Sancho again attempts to set the record straight
regarding who he is. He assures Don Antonio, “You can take it from me that anyone who
says I’m a gluttonous and untidy eater is wide off the mark . . .” (970). If the readers look
closely and pay attention, they will be able to discern the authentic Sancho from the
caricature described by the other characters or by Avellaneda.
Where we see a more obvious example of caricature or character type, rather than
a novelistic character, is with Dulcinea. An element of this parody of character types, as
the reader finds out from Sancho Panza, is that Dulcinea is far from the pure, beautiful,
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archetypal maiden deified in the books of chivalry. Aldonza Lorenzo, to whom Don
Quixote gives the name Dulcinea, is a “good-looking country lass with whom he had
been in love, although it is understood that she never knew or was aware of it” (61). In
Part I, chapter 25, when Don Quixote asks Sancho to deliver a letter to Dulcinea, he
describes their relationship, and in a way Dulcinea, to Sancho,
It does not matter if [the letter] is written in a strange hand, for as far as I can
remember, Dulcinea can neither read nor write nor has she ever seen my
handwriting. For our love for each other has always been of the platonic kind,
never going beyond an occasional modest glance at each other, and even that was
so rare that I can truly swear that during the twelve years I have loved her more
than the light of these eyes of mine . . . I have not seen her more than four times.
In fact, I even doubt if she ever noticed me gazing at her—such was the reserve
and seclusion in which her father, Lorenzo Corchuelo, and her mother, Aldonza
Nogales, brought her up. (247)
Don Quixote has constructed his great love interest on very limited details. He has only
seen her four times, but knows who her parents are and that she is illiterate. He has
created a caricature based on the pattern of the damsels of chivalric tales and loosely tied
it to the peasant girl Aldonza Lorenzo. Whereas Don Quixote only knows her by sight,
Sancho knows her as a neighbor, and it is his knowledge of her that converts Don
Quixote’s vision of Dulcinea into a parody of the maidens found in books of chivalry.
Sancho is surprised to discover that his master’s love interest is none other than a peasant
girl. He provides a more proximate description of Dulcinea,
I know her well . . . and I assure you she can pitch the iron bar as well as the
strongest lad in our village, God save us! Why, she’s a lusty lass, tall and straight,
with hair on her chest, who can pull the chestnuts out of the fire for any knighterrant now or to come who has her for his lady. God, what a woman she is! What
a pair of lungs she has, and what a voice! I’ve heard it said that one day she
climbed to the top of the church belfry to call her father’s plowmen . . . and
though they were more than half a league off, they heard her as plainly as if they
were at the foot of the tower. And the best of her is that she’s not at all coy, for
she’s a great hand at courting, always joking with the boys and making game of
everyone. . . . I wish I was gone, if only to catch a glimpse of her, for it’s many a
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day since I saw her, and I’m sure she’s changed by now. There is nothing that
spoils a girl’s face more than to be always working in the fields, exposed to sun
and wind. To be frank with your worship, I’ve been mistaken up to this, for I
thought really and truly all this while that Lady Dulcinea was some princess with
whom you were in love, or at least some person of such great qualities as to
deserve the rich presents you have sent her . . . But when all is said and done,
what good can it do Lady Aldonza Lorenzo—I mean, Lady Dulcinea of El
Toboso—to have the vanquished whom you send, or may send, falling upon their
knees before her? For perhaps at the time they arrive she may be carding flax or
threshing, and they would be mortified at the sight of her, and she would laugh or
maybe poke fun at the present you sent her. (247-48)
Sancho is amazed to find that Dulcinea is not a princess but rather an inferior peasant,
and one that he knows. According to him, Aldonza-turned-Dulcinea is a lively,
boisterous, and hard working lass. He relates that she works in the fields, having acquired
a weathered look. He describes her as a loud-mouthed, physically strong farmer’s
daughter and, later on in chapter 31, he insinuates that she smells more of garlic than of
roses. Through the contrasting descriptions of Dulcinea, the reader realizes that she is the
antithesis of the handsome, unblemished, and wealthy love interests that appear in the
books of chivalry. Since it is the damsel who motivates the knight errant, Cervantes
undermines this concept by having Don Quixote be motivated by a faulty representation
of a peerless maiden. In other words, he falls in love with a figment of his imagination as
opposed to a female character in her own right. Because she never makes an appearance
in the novel, and because Sancho’s earthy description upsets the image given to us by
Don Quixote, Dulcinea’s caricature of the unequaled damsel is parodied. This is an
instance where Cervantes provides for the impossible ideals of courtly love to clash
dramatically with the narrative reality contained in his novel. It serves as a good example
of the overall function of a Menippean satire, because it demonstrates the upending of an
impossible model. Don Quixote’s sublime vision of Dulcinea is a large part of his
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unwavering conviction in the values and beliefs proffered by books of chivalry. Frye
explains, “Thus philosophical pedantry becomes, as every target of satire eventually does,
a form of romanticism on the imposing of over-simplified ideals on experience” (231).
Don Quixote, in advocating the chivalric code of honor, attempts to instill these
unrealistic ideals on the textual reality that surrounds him. He visualizes a beautiful,
peerless maiden where others see a peasant girl. He sees giants where others perceive
windmills. He interprets kidnappings and crime where others merely observe ordinary
transportation. Like a philosopher who champions his beliefs to the point of pedantry,
harnessing them to judge the rest of the world, Don Quixote likewise continuously
attempts to impose his vision on his surroundings. Because his are over-simplified ideals
that are constantly in contrast with the reality of the text, by the end of the novel they
ultimately become an impossibility.
Through understanding the nature of Menippean satire and being able to identify
this genre within the framework of Cervantes’s novel, the reader attains a fuller
interpretation of Don Quixote. Cervantes is neither didactic nor moralizing in this work.
His characters as well as his audience are parodied: we the readers laugh at Don Quixote
for his unrealistic ideals, but we in turn are laughing at ourselves as we come to relate to
this character who attempts to rise above the textual real world that surrounds him. This
double parody is more easily understood if we as readers comprehend that Cervantes has
not set out to deliver us a specific moral or ultimatum, but rather to stir the pot and help
us confront the space which exists between our ideals or values and our perception of
reality. This is likewise the intention of a Menippean satire, which is why it is my
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assessment that the recognition of this particular genre within Cervantes’s novel can help
to define the complexity of Don Quixote.
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CHAPTER II
DISTURBING DEVICES: JOURNEY AND HUMOR IN DON QUIXOTE
In Rabelais and His World and The Dialogic Imagination, Mikhail Bakhtin
explores humor and the concept of the chronotope, respectively. Steven Hutchinson, in
Cervantine Journeys, investigates the implications of the chronotope of journey within
Cervantes’s texts. In this chapter, I employ both authors’ analyses and examine how
journey and humor affect a text. Bakhtin labels chronotope a point in a text where time
and space cross. His analysis stems from Immanuel Kant’s observation, in
“Transcendental Aesthetics,” that both time and space are integral ingredients in the
process of cognition. Bakhtin examines the role of these forms in the literal
representation of literature. Their interactions within a text are of utmost importance
because, for him, chronotopes are the deciding factors of a genre (Dialogic 85). He
further explains that they “are the organizing centers for the fundamental narrative events
of the novel. The chronotope is the place where the knots of narrative are tied and untied.
It can be said without qualification that to them belongs the meaning that shapes
narrative” (250). For Bakhtin, one must pay attention to the relationship between time
and space held within the text because “every entry into the sphere of meanings is
accomplished only through the gates of the chronotope” (258). Since there are many
kinds of temporal and spatial coordinates represented in literature, it is important to
examine the knots, or points, where they cross in order to enrich our understanding and
interpretation of a text. Each intersection provides a unique point within the narrative that
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directly influences the storyline. This junction creates an atmosphere of suggestive
possibilities which, as the character passes through, can affect the direction of the text.
One type of chronotope analyzed by Bakhtin has been translated as the road or el camino,
and this encompasses “the open road and . . . various types of meetings on the road” (98).
Bakhtin explains that the elements of distance and spatial obstacles as well as the
temporal motifs of meeting and contact figure into the concept of the road. Because he
refers to more than just a physical route or thoroughfare, this has lead me to the
conclusion that a better translation for this type of chronotope would be journey, because
it is a word which more effectively incorporates the temporal and spatial coordinates that
Bakhtin mentions. Hutchinson, continuing where Bakhtin left off with regard to this
chronotope, also uses the word journey in reference to these literary interstices, and
applies it in analyzing Cervantes’ texts. Hutchinson’s study includes several types of
journey. In Don Quixote, he examines the geographical expeditions of Don Quixote and
Sancho, how journey can be read as a metaphor for the evolution of a character’s life, and
how dialogue can be understood as a voyage of language in motion. After reading both
Bakhtin and Hutchinson, it is my intent to utilize their analyses as a means of exploring
the relationship between journey and humor and the ways in which each effects change in
a text. Looking specifically at Don Quixote, examples of the concept of journey and of
humor-provoking techniques are present in a variety of ways. In this chapter, I plan to
examine the effects of both on the text, in order to demonstrate that humor can be
understood as a literary device similar to that of journey.
Let me begin by considering the influence that journey and humor have on a text.
When either device is used, the narrative becomes unstable. If journey, for example, is
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introduced in a storyline, the course of action leaves the previously described or existing
boundaries of the text. The plot, in other words, crosses beyond the realm of the familiar.
As a result, the storyline is exposed to new concepts that may fragment what could
previously be considered a staid narrative. Alonso Quijano’s decision to leave the
comforts of his library and home and venture out into the world represents the transition
from a secure narrative setting to a more vulnerable one, in that through the mechanism
of journey the possibility is introduced of encountering things previously unknown to the
protagonist. These new experiences in turn enable a change in him, if not also in the
storyline. And much in the way that traveling lifts the protagonist out of the norm and
into less stable circumstances, so humor also produces an alteration in the text. Anything
that creates laughter in many ways parallels the mechanisms of journey: through a
fluctuation in coordinates, a change occurs. In the case of comic coordinates sparking a
humorous interpretation on the part of the readers, laughter is the outcome. Humor is
evoked through a contrast of some sort and, whether the author is employing irony,
sarcasm, parody, or another comic technique, when these amusing elements appear in a
text, a break or change in the narrative occurs. These comic elements serve as catalysts
that carry the readers of the situation away from a staid or predictable atmosphere and
move them into reacting with laughter. As a result, the technique of humor should be
understood as a narrative journey, which transports the character or readers outside or
away from the previous textual linearity. Because authors build comic techniques into the
text that they are writing, the uniformity of the plot is compromised and change in the
narrative becomes inevitable. Therefore, just as the outcome of journey provokes an
alteration or change of some sort, the same is true when humor energizes the text.
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When we think about the concept of journey, we invariably think of movement.
This movement may be spatial, as in a change from one geographic location to another. It
may imply a temporal transition, such as in the maturation of an individual physically or
psychologically. It may also be a combination of spatial and temporal changes, where,
through the progression of time and activities as well as through the movement from one
city to the next, a youth such as Lazarillo de Tormes, for example, is transformed into an
adult. The type of journey that appears in a text is largely dependent on how the text is
narrated.
In the case of Cervantes’s novel, by traveling through new spaces, Don Quixote
and Sancho Panza are exposed to different concepts. In coming into contact with new
characters, they are introduced to alternative ways of thinking and living. At the same
time, being in unfamiliar circumstances, they are vulnerable to misinterpretations and
confusion, if not also to practical jokes made by the characters whose space they are
invading. By incorporating a change in scenery or environment, Cervantes has opened up
the text and facilitated the presence of comicality. During his first sally alone, irony
surfaces as Don Quixote mistakes an inn for a castle and two prostitutes for damsels (I:
2). Later, the sacrosanctity of chivalric ceremonies is parodied when the innkeeper takes
advantage of Don Quixote’s obliviousness by using his ledger rather than the traditional
Bible to knight him. Because Don Quixote has transplanted himself into a new venue, his
attempt to transpose a fictional world of chivalry onto the textual reality of ordinary
characters at an inn offers the other characters, narrators, and readers the opportunity to
interpret irony, parody, and other humorous elements in the storyline. Don Quixote’s
journey is one of the key ingredients to invoking humor here. Had he gone mad but
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stayed put in his library by himself, the situation might still be humorous, but on a much
smaller scale. Combined with the concept of journey, the possibilities for comic effect are
multiplied as the frame within which they can exist is greatly extended. Without travel,
this type of comic interlude would never have occurred.
Journey is integral not only to the plot of the novel but also when considering the
character description of Don Quixote. He calls himself a knight errant, a title which
contains the act of traveling in its name. Michel Foucault, in The Order of Things,
describes Don Quixote as “a diligent pilgrim breaking his journey before all the marks of
similitude” and as “a letter that has just escaped from the open pages of a book” (46). He
goes on to explain that, because Don Quixote has fashioned himself out of the examples
of knights errant set before him in books of chivalry, “Don Quixote is a true likeness of
all the signs that he has traced from his book” and that he is “constantly obliged to
consult it in order to know what to do or say” (46). Foucault posits that this book of
chivalric romances from which Don Quixote has escaped “is not so much his existence as
his duty” (46) and that he must put to the test all the ways in which he resembles the
protagonists from these books. I think it is possible to take Foucault’s analysis here one
step further. Alonso Quijano does go crazy from reading too many chivalric romances
and, based on the heroes of these books, he creates his alter-ego, Don Quixote. In
weaving together the ingredients for a knight errant, Alonso Quijano is fashioning a
pattern or map through which he explores the world. Don Quixote, in other words, is a
map that directs Alonso Quijano’s actions and guides his interpretations of the exchanges
he has with the textual world that surrounds him. Foucault believes Don Quixote must
interpret his encounters as a reenactment of things he has read in chivalric romances and
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that his adventures are “a diligent search over the entire surface of the earth for the forms
that will prove that what the books say is true” (47). It seems to me, however, that Don
Quixote is the map that Alonso Quijano needs in order to function in and make sense of
this world, rather than an artifice that seeks to prove correct the world of chivalric
romances. He is not attempting to validate chivalric romances through his actions, but
instead seeks to
become a knight errant, roaming through the world with his horse and armor in
quest of adventures and practicing all that had been performed by the knights
errant of whom he had read. He would follow their life, redressing all manner of
wrongs and exposing himself to continual dangers, and at last, after concluding
his enterprises, he would win everlasting honor and renown. (59)8
His focus is not to prove the principles advocated in the chivalric genre as true; he has
already taken this for granted believing the books themselves to be non-fiction. Instead,
he takes it upon himself to fix what he interprets to be grievances or offenses in the
world, in the hopes of attaining the prestige given to the knights errant he has read about.
In Part II, chapter 32, Don Quixote explains to the ecclesiastic at the Duke and Duchess’s
palace,
I . . . follow the narrow path of knight errantry, and in practicing that calling I
despise wealth but not honor. I have redeemed injuries, righted wrongs, chastised
insolence, conquered giants, and trampled on monsters. I am in love for no other
reason than that it is an obligation for knights errant to be so . . . My intentions are
always directed toward virtuous ends, to do good to all and evil to none. (754)
In becoming Don Quixote, Alonso Quijano turns into the map he has wrought for himself
via the patterns found in books of chivalry. As Don Quixote, his need is not necessarily to
prove that chivalric romances are correct or ideal, but rather to fit his vision of how the
8
Unless otherwise specified, all quotations in this essay in English from Don Quixote are taken from the
Walter Starkie edition.
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world should be onto his environs. His crusade to right wrongs is a journey to mount
chivalric values onto the textual reality of his surroundings.
At the same time, because Don Quixote serves as a walking map of the ideals
championed in books of chivalry, humor surfaces every time a portion of this map runs
into textual reality and is exposed as erroneous or malapropos. The generic formula of
chivalric romance, embodied in Don Quixote, contrasts itself against the generic veracity
of the novel, and this interaction provokes laughter. To put it another way, because the
directions Don Quixote follows are for a different genre, when applied to a novelistic
reality, Don Quixote’s actions produce laughter from the other characters if not also from
the readers. Because Don Quixote is this map of books of chivalry that roams through the
textual reality of a novel, the readers laugh when he sees giants but instead collides with
the reality of the windmills (I: 8). Later, in chapter 19, when Don Quixote and Sancho
come across the funeral procession in the night, Don Quixote’s imagination “immediately
suggested that this must be one of the chivalrous adventures he had read about. He
imagined that the litter was a bier on which was carried some dead or sorely wounded
knight, whose revenge was reserved for him alone” (180). When presented with
unrecognizable information, Don Quixote interprets the situation according to the
coordinates of chivalric adventure that he has gleaned from his readings. But because the
narrator has already described the situation as a nighttime funeral procession, the readers
can laugh at the incongruity between Don Quixote’s vision and the textual reality of the
funeral convoy. This continual clash between Don Quixote-as-chivalric-map and the
realistic template presented by the novel results in many humorous situations throughout
the text. Metaphorically-speaking, Don Quixote is an outdated map roaming over a novel
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landscape. It is through the interaction of these incompatible formulae that Cervantes
creates laughter in the text.
Another type of journey is that of a character’s vision or goal. When Don Quixote
first convinces Sancho to accompany him on his adventures, the knight promises to give
his squire an island to govern, as payment for his services. During their journeying,
Sancho often comments on what he will do with his island, how he will govern it, and in
general shares with the readers his future plans for his governorship. Sancho slowly
fashions his dream for his governorship along the course of the novel, but when he is
presented with the Island of Barataria as a real, physical entity, the readers see how
Sancho turns from idealist to realist as he is subjected to the obligations of being
governor as well as to practical jokes. When Sancho dreams of his governorship,
becomes governor, and then finally abandons this role, the readers are presented with a
transitioning character who learns from his experiences as he travels through this phase
of his life. Sancho begins by desiring a governorship, but as he passes through the actual
experience of being governor, he is affected by what the job entails as well as the Duke
and Duchess’ pranks, because he is only a source of entertainment for them. This journey
alters him psychologically in that he changes his plans and decides to accept and return to
his lowly position of squire. By actually living his dream, Sancho moves through and
then past it. The ordeal of realizing his dream modifies his mindset and provokes his
decision to give it up. As Sancho journeys through the text physically as well as
psychologically, humor is interlaced with his adventures as governor, but it is a humor
made at Sancho’s expense. The humor here mixes with the device of journey to open up
the narrative even further and reveal the ulterior motives of the other characters. Both the
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parody of King Solomon’s court and the satire of Sancho’s passion for eating, for
instance, expose the underlying hypocrisy and dishonesty of the Duke and Duchess and
the other perpetrators of Sancho’s Baratarian misfortunes. In this episode, humor also
takes the readers on a journey, which begins with Sancho’s dream but ends up being a
bitter farce for Sancho and an eye-opening satire for the readers.
Interlaced with the psychological journeying of Sancho are the pranks pulled on
him of a corporeal nature. Most readers laugh at the dining ordeal between Sancho and
the physician Pedro Recio, as it focuses on the abuse of eating, which is one of Sancho’s
great loves. The physical tormenting by Dr. Recio, under the guise of protecting Sancho
both from poisoning and from unhealthy foods, is interpreted by the readers as funny
because of the already established passion of Sancho. Humor is born through the contrast
of excess with sparsity, and temptation with danger. Sancho’s growing agitation only
encourages the readers’ laughter. It is a different type of humor, however, that occurs on
the final night of Sancho’s governorship. While slapstick in the whirlwind manner in
which Sancho is whisked out of bed, armed with cumbersome equipment, and then
beaten and trampled, this type of humor also magnifies the antagonistic cruelty of the
perpetrators. It makes the readers laugh but at the same time more clearly exposes the
manipulations of the other characters. In other words, Sancho’s journey through physical
torments while governor spawns different types of comical interludes. These in turn open
up the text and more clearly reveal the motives of the various characters.
Humor may take the readers on a mental journey, motivating their awareness with
regard to textual relationships or even influencing the perception of events outside of the
text and in real life. It can also directly affect the actions of characters within the text. We
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have only to think of Sancho’s promise in Part II, chapter 35 to lash himself three
thousand three hundred times in order to free Dulcinea from her enchantment. The false
Merlin, one of the Duke’s cohorts, creates this punishment for Sancho for the benefit of
the Duke and Duchess. This humor at Sancho’s expense motivates him to lie to his
master and to fake his punishment by whipping a tree and moaning loudly (II: 71). His
farcical actions in turn instill pity in the unknowing Don Quixote and spur him to bring to
a halt the castigation. The Duke and Duchess’s humorous prank influences both Don
Quixote’s and Sancho’s subsequent actions: Sancho lies to his master and Don Quixote
interferes with the process that he believes would free Dulcinea. While the protagonists
themselves do not find humor in this episode, the other characters and the readers may, as
they have been distanced from identifying with either protagonist because they are aware
of the practical joke. As a result, the bystanders are able to interpret humor in what would
otherwise be understood as a painful situation due to their detachment from the
protagonists and therefore the power to laugh at, rather than commiserate with, them.
An example where both Sancho and Don Quixote themselves find a situation
funny, but in turn react differently, occurs during the episode of the fulling mills (I: 20).
When both characters realize their foolishness at being scared of only fulling mills and
not monstrous entities as they had imagined, they burst into laughter. The absurdity of the
situation, of the frightful night they spent in anticipation of encountering something
terrible the following morning only to find that all of their fears were completely
unfounded, presents a sharp contrast between imagination and reality. Because what they
were expecting was so different from what they encountered, this incongruity produces
laughter in the characters. The space created by this contrast in the narrative, however, is
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quickly filled by Sancho, whose laughter turns to mockery of the heroic speech Don
Quixote had made the night before with regard to the unknown terror. In realizing that he
is being mocked, Don Quixote’s laughter changes to anger and he lashes out at Sancho.
Here, the humor of the situation has transported the characters away from their initial
fears and, at first, into reacting with laughter. Sancho interprets this humor as stemming
in part from the ridiculousness of his master’s words, while Don Quixote then
understands Sancho’s laughter as a personal attack and becomes indignant, hitting
Sancho on both the head and back with his lance. Either way, humor has caused both
characters to react differently, thereby affecting their physical actions. It is through the
transformation of fear into laughter and then laughter into mockery and indignation, that
humor creates a change in the characters’ actions and in the storyline.
The journey of life also represents a physical transformation within a narrative,
when the readers see a character age and then die. At the beginning of the novel, Don
Quixote is middle-aged and full of life as he ventures out to fix the world. As he passes
through his exploits and receives numerous pummelings and defeats, his body and spirit
begin to weaken. After his fall to the Knight of the White Moon, he returns home. There
he ends his journey as Don Quixote, becomes Alonso Quijano again after a moment of
awareness, and then passes on. The wear and tear of all of his adventures physically
affects him to the point where he literally can no longer move. This is a narrative
example of the journey of the body through life. It is also a poignant moment in the novel
that many critics find difficult to interpret. I do not have the space here to mention all of
the many ways in which Don Quixote’s death has been interpreted. I do, however, want
to mention James Iffland’s explanation because it deals specifically with journey and
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motion. In De fiestas y aguafiestas, Iffland explores the connection between the
rejuvenating theory of Carnival as embodied in Don Quixote. His interpretation is
noteworthy because it explains how the ups and downs the protagonist undergoes
throughout the novel are symbolic of the fluctuations that take place in Carnival, where
contrasting values such as the noble and the base or the sane and the mad continuously
exchange places. But once Don Quixote’s journey ends and he dies, Iffland admits that
this is the opposite of what he believes should occur in a truly carnivalesque
representation. Because Carnival ellicits an incessant rejuvenation process, “la lógica
carnavalesca sobre la que está erigido el texto permitiría perfectamente una futura
resurrección, seguida por más aventuras” (559). Basing his analysis on what Cervantes
writes in the second prologue, Iffland believes that Cervantes changed his original ending
and had Don Quixote die as a direct answer to Avellaneda’s version. While I believe this
assertion to be a definite possibility, I do not think that this serves as the complete
explanation of the reasoning behind Cervantes’s decision to end the novel with Don
Quixote’s death. As with the rest of the storyline, the episode surrounding Don Quixote’s
death is multifaceted. In Cervantes’s La Galatea, the shepherd Tirsi at one point speaks
about the relationship between love and desire as a type of propelling movement in an
individual. He speculates that “desire is movement of the appetite with respect to what is
loved, and a wanting of what is possessed” (308). In other words, desire is what
motivates a character into motion. Through desire, the character is prompted into action
or begins to work towards some type of change. This is the same with Don Quixote. At
the beginning of the novel, the protagonist becomes so enmeshed with his books of
chivalry that he desires to live as if he were in one. His original aspiration to pick up his
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pen and continue the unending chivalric stories is superseded by the desire to go out into
the world and reenact what he has read:
At last, having lost his wits completely, he stumbled upon the oddest fancy that
ever entered a madman’s brain. He believed that it was necessary . . . that he
should become a knight errant, roaming through the world with his horse and
armor in quest of adventures and practicing all that he had read. . . . And thus
excited by these agreeable delusions, he hastened to put his plans into operation.
(59)
In the original version, the last line of this paragraph states, “se dio priessa a poner en
efeto lo que desseaua” (folio 2v). Both in the English version and especially in the
Spanish version, we see how desire induces Don Quixote to journey out into the world. It
is through his love of books of chivalry that desire sparks him into action. It is this same
desire that continues to motivate him throughout the novel. In fact, if we examine the
chronology of the novel, we find that Don Quixote, throughout all of his adventures,
stayed at home approximately a month between the first and second parts. The rest of the
time he was in movement, either journeying through the books he read, journeying away
from or back to home, or journeying through his conversations with Sancho and the other
characters he met along the way. When the Knight of the White Moon imposes the
sentence of a year of rest and stillness at home, it is important to keep in mind that Don
Quixote no longer has his store of literature in which to escape and that his library no
longer exists. Upon arriving at his bookless house, he states that during this year of
isolation he will spend his time in the countryside like the shepherds in pastoral novels.
Initially, he is encouraged by Sancho, Sansón Carrasco, and the others, who say they will
join him. But then two things happen which, to me, may help further explain why he dies
shortly hereafter. The first has to do with his housekeeper and niece. Once they hear that
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he is planning to venture out as a shepherd during that year’s time, they enter his room.
The niece begins,
“We thought that you had come to stay at home and live here like a quiet, honest
gentleman, and here you are longing to wander off into fresh labyrinths . . . In
truth, uncle, the straw is too old to make pipes of.”
“Heaven help us, sir!” added the housekeeper. “How will your worship be able to
stand the summer’s heat, the winter’s frost, and the howling of the wolves in the
open country? Pray, sir, you mustn’t think of it . . . Stay at home, look after your
property, go to confession often, do good to the poor, and let me take the blame if
you do wrong.” (1043)
By reminding him of his age and by stifling his opportunity to travel, both mentally via a
new adventure and physically through the outdoors, they are trying to prevent any type of
journey. They want him to stay home and rest and, in every sense, keep from moving.
This time, as opposed to the other occasions when they tried to stop him, Don Quixote
listens to them. This is the second important difference between this episode and other
parts of the novel. He does not reject their plea to stop moving. It is immediately after
this that he declares himself unwell, asking for help to be put to bed.
What happens next further emphasizes his immobility. He is “stricken down by a
violent fever that confined him to his bed for six days” (1044), after which time he
awakens and declares himself sane. Iffland understands this rejection of insanity and
affirmation of his lucidity as a way around the Inquisition, with regard to the legal
implications of validating a will and being confessed. If he were understood to be crazy,
it would be impossible to perform either activity. This is definitely a valid interpretation,
but, in my opinion, Cervantes always writes in such a rich way that multiple
interpretations of an episode are possible. Iffland’s interpretation does not exclude the
possibility that, due to Don Quixote’s rejection of further journeys and of movement in
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general, there no longer exists a space within him for the desire of adventure and
discovery to exist. Within the carnivalesque notion of laughter, the element of motion is
integral. Without a space where movement is allowed to occur, the carnivalesque is
stifled and rejuvenation turns into stagnation. To refer back to what I mentioned earlier,
Alonso Quijano has decided to discard the map of chivalric romances that he had been
using, Don Quixote, and in doing so he renounces his desire to journey, opting instead to
remain still. But journey is an integral part of his life and therefore, by impeding this
element, he has come to a dead end. Since this part of Alonso Quijano dies, his spirit
follows shortly thereafter. His death could be interpreted to imply that living in stagnation
is not really living. This interpretation would also coincide with Iffland’s carnivalesque
reading, where the only thing that truly kills the possibility of rejuvenation is a stagnant
atmosphere.
Directly after his protagonist’s death, Cide Hamete Benengeli draws his readers’s
attention away from the inner text with a speech to his pen. In reference to intratextual
movement, the rotation of narrative voices throughout the novel adds to the shifting of
the readers’s attention from the internal characters’ voices, to the extradiegetic
commentators’ voices, and then back again. By moving the readers’s attention back and
forth between these narrative frames, humor is produced through the variety of
perspectives presented. In Part I, chapter 8, for example, when the first author breaks into
the impending battle between Don Quixote and the Biscayan squire to explain that he has
run out of the manuscript, the readers are immediately pulled away from the proximate
action and not only reminded of the activity of reading in which they are participating but
are informed that there is confusion as to authorship of this novel:
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But it is most unfortunate that at this critical moment the author of this history
leaves the battle in mid air, with the excuse that he could find no more exploits of
Don Quixote than those related here. It is true that the second author of this work
refused to believe that so curious a history could have been consigned to oblivion
or that the wits of La Mancha could have been so lacking in curiosity as not to
possess in their archives or in their registries some documents referring to this
famous knight. (105)
The realization that there are two authors plus a narrator describing their predicaments of
running out of a manuscript call the readers’s attention away from Don Quixote’s fight.
This shift in focus destabilizes the linearity of the text while adding to the comicality
surrounding the scene of Don Quixote’s madcap fight with the Biscayan. The readers are
reminded that the central activity, the fight, is a mere story. This distances the readers
from the internal characters and therefore allows them to laugh at the knight errant and
the Biscayan squire, who are fighting using a cushion and swords, rather than identify
with the characters’s plight. At the same time, the readers are exposed to an external layer
of the text; that of multiple authorship. The effect of this technique is also humorous, as it
surprises through its ingenuity. This incident represents one of many scenes in the novel
in which, through a journey in narrative voice, the contrast provided by the varying
storytellers promotes humor. Time and again, as the readers’ eyes travel from page to
page in the act of reading, so too they move in and out of the many layers of narration in
the novel. The readers journey through the act of reading physically, via the act of
moving from one word to the next, and mentally, via the concepts created by the words.
In addition to readers traveling through the act of reading, there are also
instruments or props that journey in meaning and influence the level of humor. A
particular prop can be incorporated into the storyline and, depending on how it is utilized
or how often it is mentioned, can increase in comic value. This can serve repeatedly as a
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catalyst of laughter once its comic currency is established. When Don Quixote first
mentions the balsam of Fierabrás, for instance, it is with reference to a cure-all potion
that Fierabrás, a Saracen knight, employs in the chivalric work Historia del Emperador
Carlomagno. According to legend, this potion was used to embalm Christ and therefore
holds miraculous powers.
In chapter 10 of Part I, after Don Quixote has been injured in his tussle with the
Biscayan squire, he explains to Sancho that the balsam of Fierabrás is a potion of
immense power, and he insists that, even if he were sliced in two, Sancho would only
have to “take up the part of the body that has fallen to the ground with the greatest nicety
before the blood congeals and put it up again on the half that remains in the saddle, taking
great pains to fit it exactly in the right place” (113). Then, by drinking only two sips of
the balsam, Don Quixote would be completely restored to good health. The balm is
introduced to the narrative with the same signification it held in Historia del Emperador
Carlomagno, that of a miraculous elixir. Sancho immediately asks to be given the potion
instead of the island he had been promised, as he wishes to sell it and make his fortune
that way. Fierabrás’s balsam is at first viewed by Don Quixote as a panacea, while
Sancho sees it as an income-producing opportunity. From its initial appearance in the
narrative, the balm has already journeyed slightly in terms of what it now signifies. Five
chapters later, after Don Quixote and Sancho have been pummeled by the Yanguesan
carriers and lay on the ground in pain, Sancho calls out to his master, “I wish, if it were
possible, that you would give me a couple of sups of that balsam of Vile Blas, if you have
it ready to hand; perhaps it will be as good for broken bones as for wounds” (148).
Sancho, unfamiliar with the name Fierabrás, inadvertently adds a humorous nuance to
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the potion’s signification by referring to it as Vile Blas (or Feoblas). The sanctity of the
object’s meaning is now contaminated by a comical misnomer, which represents the
balm’s transitioning further in its journey through the narrative and how it now begins to
signify both sacred and base attributes.
In chapter 17, after their tumultuous night at the inn, the bruised and battered Don
Quixote calls for Sancho to find some rosemary, salt, oil, and wine to make the balm. He
mixes them together, boils the concoction, and then pours it into a tin cruse. “He,
furthermore, recited over the cruse more than eighty paternosters and as many Ave
Marias, salves, and credos, accompanying every word with a cross by way of blessing”
(163). In observing how the balsam is fashioned, the readers are exposed to another
dimension of the object’s significance. Made from simple ingredients, the balsam is
imbued with purgative (rosemary) and curative (salt, oil, wine) elements. By being
prayed over, the secular potion assimilates a spiritual dimension. When Don Quixote
drinks what is left in the pot after he has filled the cruse, its immediate effect is to make
him vomit and sweat profusely. After he rests in bed for more than three hours, he
awakes to find himself fully recovered. He is now convinced that he can take part in any
type of adventure or dangerous undertaking without worry, as his balsam of Fierabrás
will be there to cure whatever physical misfortune he may encounter. Due to Don
Quixote’s treatment of this liquid, its value transitions from that of an ordinary mixture of
common household ingredients to a panacea with supernatural powers.
The balm takes Sancho, however, on an entirely different journey. Understanding
his master’s recovery to be nothing short of a miracle, and one directly caused by the
balsam of Fierabrás, Sancho asks to finish off the liquid remaining in the pot. Drinking at
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least as much as Don Quixote, Sancho is immediately affected not only with vomiting but
also with diarrhea. Don Quixote opines that this is perhaps because Sancho is not a knight
errant and therefore should not be imbibing in a chivalric beverage. Now the balsam is
understood as being selective concerning its curative value, aiding only those of the
knight errant skein and harming those who are not. Understandably, Sancho is upset and
asks Don Quixote why he did not mention this when Sancho first asked to try it. This is a
question that goes unanswered, but that nonetheless highlights the incongruity
surrounding the balm with regard to its function. Rather than the prop holding a particular
value on its own, Don Quixote’s observation suggests that it is the characters themselves,
or their qualifications, that determine the effectiveness of the balm.
Don Quixote believes the balm of Fierabrás will work. Through this belief, based
on his faith in the books of chivalry that he has read, the prayers he has said over the
potion, and that he understands himself to be a knight errant, the liquid is imbued with
curative powers for him. Sancho is not a knight errant. He does not hold the same faith in
the potion that his master does, because he does not ask to try it until after he has seen his
master’s miraculous recovery. Rather than the potion not having the ideal effect, it is
Sancho who does not bring about the desired cure. Don Quixote chalks Sancho’s bad
experience up to not being in the necessary profession, but it may simply be a case of
mind over matter rather than matter, or balsam, over character.
After this point in the text, it becomes clear that the prop means one thing for Don
Quixote and quite another for Sancho. The readers are now prepped, as the balsam of
Fierabrás becomes a signifier which, because it continues to appear in the text, can
produce a specific effect, given that the readers have been conditioned to understand it in
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a particular way. After Sancho is blanketed by the traveling merchants, he is overheard
by Don Quixote asking Maritornes for something to drink. She offers him water, but Don
Quixote interjects, “Sancho, my son, drink no water; drink it not, my son, for it will kill
you. Behold, here I have the most holy balsam . . . two drops of this will certainly cure
you” (167). The readers, knowing what the potion means for Sancho, anticipate a
humorous reaction on the part of the squire. “At these words, Sancho, giving his master a
squint-eyed look, replied in a louder voice: ‘You must have forgotten that I am no knight,
or else perhaps you want me to spew up what remains of my guts after last night’s bit of
work. Keep your liquor to yourself and in the Devil’s name leave me alone’” (167).
Sancho’s sarcastic reply emphasizes their opposing viewpoints regarding the balsam, and
because the readers understands this, his reply is funnier than if his relationship with the
potion had not been previously established in the text.
The balsam of Fierabrás, after its initial insertion in the text, increases repeatedly
both in comic value and in meaning every time it interacts with the protagonists or is
mentioned in the narrative. It journeys from its initial definition as a chivalric elixir to
become a product signifying both miraculous powers and at the same time injurious
consequences. Through its narrative journey it likewise journeys in meaning and in
humorous effects.
Similar in the manner in which a prop acquires meaning via the way it is used by
characters or travels through the text, what a character, place, or thing is named may also
transition in meaning as it journeys through a narrative. The word “Barataria,” for
instance, evolves in meaning from the point where it first appears in the novel. It
continues to transition in significance by leaving the text and taking shape in the form of
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a geographical location. Within the narrative, the signifier “Barataria” first emerges in the
text as the island granted to Sancho Panza as his governorship. As Sancho journeys to his
governorship in Part II, the narrator begins chapter 45 by describing the area Sancho has
been given to oversee: “Sancho and his entire suite came to a village of about a thousand
inhabitants that was one of the best the duke possessed. They gave him to understand that
it was called the island of Barataria, either because Barataria was really its name, or
because he had obtained it at so cheap a rate” (843).9 The narrator does not offer a lot of
information regarding a physical description, except that he adds that the small town is
walled. The readers are left to deduce that it may not really be an island, because no
mention of crossing water or using a boat is ever made, plus Sancho is able to reach it by
riding his mule. In chapter 54, the narrator refers to Barataria as an “island, city, or
town,” and explains that Sancho “had never troubled himself to find out what it was”
(912).10 In addition to being a word pregnant with a variety of interpretations, Barataria is
further conditioned to signifying uncertainty in reference to its political classification,
since even the narrator is unwilling or incapable of clarifying what it is. From its initial
appearance in the text, the term “Barataria” provides a space that allows for the readers to
be carried through a myriad of interpretations as to what this word signifies. Cervantes, as
with many other verbal inventions, has created a word with a certain degree of flexibility
concerning its meaning.
When examining the composition of “Barataria,” there are many words which
resemble it in structure. Perhaps the most obvious is barato, meaning “cheap.” This same
9
“. . . llegó Sancho a un lugar de hasta mil vecinos, que era de los mejores que el duque tenía. Diéronle a
entender que se llamaba la ínsula Barataria, o ya porque el lugar se llamaba Baratario, o ya por el barato
con que se le había dado el gobierno” (359).
10
“nunca se puso a averiguar si era ínsula, ciudad, villa o lugar la que gobernaba” (432).
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word also appears as slang in Part II, chapter 49, when Sancho listens to the case of the
man who expects to receive money from a winning gambler and calls this tip a “barato.”
If the connection between these two words is understood by the readers, “Barataria”
would trigger an understanding of “cheapness” as well as of an object that is given offthe-cuff or as a small reward for services rendered. In his article “The Baratarian
Archipelago: Cheap Isle, Pourboire Isle, Chicanery Isle, Joker’s Isle,” Joseph R. Jones
discusses the etymology behind “Barataria” and its possible root origins. He points out
that baratar means “to swindle” and baratería is “judicial extortion or bribery,” both in
use during the seventeenth century (139). With regard to the way the Duke gave Sancho
this governorship, Jones suggests Cervantes could be utilizing “Barataria” to criticize the
nobility’s abuse of authority, in particular “the monopoly of power, unfair and tyrannical
practices, extortions of rents . . . , and arbitrary nominations” (143). Seeing “Barataria” in
the text for the first time, contemporary readers of Don Quixote might have associated a
variety of other words to its meaning as well. For especially cultured readers schooled in
Classical Latin, “Barataria” could have triggered associations with Barathrum, or “an
infernal region or abyss,” whereas those familiar with Italian might have recognized
barattare, which means “to barter.” Readers of Dante’s Inferno would have remembered
the barattière, or corrupt politicians, in the fifth bolgia of Canto XXI.
Another interpretation of Barataria relates to its physical description. By looking
at the composition of the word itself, the readers may have been able to infer that the
designation of “island” was a fib, by recognizing other words in “Barataria.” Bara, for
example, is a prefix in Spanish meaning “pesantez” or “gravedad terrestre.” Those
readers familiar with French might have recognized the words barre, meaning “bar,” and
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terre, meaning “land” as forming part of “Barataria.” Lastly, the famous island to which
Amadís de Gaula retreats is named Insula Firme, which is perhaps a play on “terra
firma,” and which also may have influenced Cervantes’s creation of his word. Therefore,
in deducing from this word the image of a bar of land, the readers were able to pick up on
a humorous undercurrent regarding this supposed island strictly from the makeup of its
name. Utilizing this signifier as a source of information and interpreting that the location
is a land-locked island, the readers would note humor in this oxymoron. At the same
time, readers familiar with Italian would see in “Barataria” the word barriera, which
means “obstacle.” In Spanish, the suffix -aria “se refiere a la persona a quien se cede
algo” according to the dictionary of the Real Academia Española. In other words, it is
possible to speculate that Cervantes, by choosing a word pregnant with connotations of
deceptions or impediments, was possibly intending to tip off the readers as to what
Sancho had in store for himself as governor. In this sense, Cervantes provided the readers
with a journey in meaning where, rather than taking a word at face value and merely
continuing on with the narrative, the readers are transported, possibly via laughter but
definitely through interpretation, into understanding other nuances and meanings of this
particular episode of the novel.
As the plot continues, the readers see that at the end of his governorship, after ten
laborious days of acting as judge, of involuntary dieting, and of being sleep-deprived,
Sancho decides he has had enough and renounces his position. This conclusion is reached
after a particularly harrowing skirmish with the Duke’s enemies, where Sancho is dressed
in cumbersome armor, ganged-up on, and forced to fight a battle that he has no chance of
winning. Disillusioned and disappointed, Sancho gives up on his dream. His
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governorship of the Island of Barataria was not what he had expected, and he decides he
was better off in his lowly role of squire. In summary, with reference to understanding
“Barataria” within the framework of the text, the word should be viewed as a carefullyconstructed signifier allowing for varying interpretations of deceit, dishonesty, and
disappointment. The word has journeyed in meaning from its inception in the text to now
encapsulate the unpleasant experiences Sancho undergoes as governor, due to the
machinations and foul play of the Duke and his cronies.
It is also possible for a particular word to journey in meaning by leaving the text.
Readers who choose to utilize what they read and interpret in a book serve as the medium
through which a word departs from the text and continues to assimilate new meaning.
This happens when a word is uprooted from its original text and is used in a new work. It
is also occurs when the word is transplanted onto a non-textual object, such as a physical
location. Because Cervantes is accredited with coining the word “Barataria,” the
geographical areas in the Americas which carry this same name offer the opportunity to
study how a word journeys in meaning, by how readers of Don Quixote interpreted the
island of Barataria themselves when they utilized this signifier to stand for their lands.
There are three specific locations in the Americas that hold the name Barataria, and they
are located in Louisiana, Trinidad, and the Bahamas.
Beginning with Louisiana, in researching the region, I came across several
theories about why this section of land located slightly southwest of New Orleans held
this name. Of the merchants of the area whose web pages provided a brief history of
Barataria or who answered my emails, such as James Gaffney of Trails.com and Captain
Ripp Blank of Ripp’s Inland Charters, the majority credit the Pirate Jean Lafitte with
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naming Barataria, since he used that area for his headquarters during the early nineteenth
century. Lyle Saxon, in Lafitte, the Pirate, states that the French word baraterie, with its
Provençal equivalent of barataria, means “a fraudulent breach of duty or willful act of
known illegality on the part of a master of a ship, in his character of master, or of the
mariners, to the injury of the owner of the ship or cargo, and without his consent” (37).
Here, Cervantes’s word has evolved in meaning to include concepts of piracy and
lawlessness, for which Jean Lafitte was known. Looking back further in time, Jane Lucas
de Grummond, in The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans, offers the following
explanation as to why the land was named Barataria:
The first settlers in Louisiana needed termite-resistant cypress for building
their houses . . . and ships. Across the Mississippi from New Orleans was
a lush forest of these timbers in a swamp area which was really an island
because it was bounded by the Big Lake of Ouatchas . . . However, this
swamp forest was inaccessible to those early Frenchmen, so they named it
“The Island of Barataria,” after that unattainable island kingdom of
Sancho Panza in Cervantes’s immortal Don Quixote. (1)
This explanation offers a description that ties the naming of Barataria to an interpretation
of Cervantes’s text. Correspondingly, Betsy Swanson, in Terre Haute de Barataria, cites
that “Claude Joseph Villars Dubreuil . . . claimed to have discovered and named Bayou
Barataria and the Isle de Barataria. . . . It is interesting to note that among the books listed
as being in Dubreuil’s library at the time of his wife’s death in 1754 was a copy of Don
Quixote” (54). A reader of Cervantes’s novel, Dubreuil lifted Barataria from the pages of
the text and transplanted it to the area around southern New Orleans. Although there is no
written explanation as to exactly why Dubreuil chose this name, Swanson believes the
reason may be connected to the physical description of the land. If this is the case, this
interpretation indicates a further journey in signification, now incorporating into its field
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of connotations the value of an inaccessible or unfeasible dream. This signification can be
understood as ironic, adding a humorous tone to the nomenclature. By using a name
whose textual meaning assimilated comic undertones via the narrator’s commentary,
Dubreuil would be encouraging a humorous if not sarcastic interpretation of this piece of
dubious swamp land.
In researching Louisiana’s Barataria, I stumbled across another area of land with
the same name on the island of Trinidad. Much smaller than the Barataria of Louisiana,
this Barataria lies slightly to the east of Port-of-Spain and to the west of San Juan.
Michael Anthony, in Towns and Villages in Trinidad and Tobago, writes that Barataria is
a dairy farm “where, according to its owners, things were cheap. For ‘Barataria’ in
Spanish is a place where cheap things are found” (142). It is interesting to note that, of all
of the chronicles and documents that I researched in reference to the naming of this
location, there exists no mention of Don Quixote or its Barataria. One local historian,
Ronald Emrit, explains on his website Trinidad and Tobago (From the 20th Century
Onward), “It is believed that Barataria was named after a 12-plate sugar mill that
operated in the community during the early part of the twentieth century. Derived from a
combination of different Indian dialects, the name was given by the East Indians who
worked on the sugar-cane plantation that covered most of Barataria: bara meant twelve,
and taria meant plate” (<http://www.bestoftrinidad.com/communities/barataria.html>).
The signifier has traveled so far in meaning that its link to its origin, Cervantes’s novel, is
lost. Without that history to define it, the word is now open to interpretation on the part of
an historian or a local resident.
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The last of the Baratarias I mention here is also the smallest, geographicallyspeaking. Sometimes referred to as Barataria Settlement and sometimes listed on maps as
Baraterre, it is located at the northern tip of Great Exuma Cay, in the Bahamas. While I
have yet to find conclusive proof as to when this northern cay was named Barataria
Settlement, I did find that during the American Revolution, Great Exuma became an area
where American Loyalists found asylum. Since this coincides with the period in which
Don Quixote had reached its height of popularity in England, it is possible to speculate
that it was around that time that this portion of land was given its title. As to why it
carries this name, one feasible reason has to do with these same Loyalists. Upon moving
to the cays, they attempted to establish cotton plantations. Due both to the poor quality of
land and to England’s abolition of slavery at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
cotton plantations became unsuccessful economically and were abandoned. This in many
ways echoes Sancho’s fate concerning his island, because he deserted his dreams of
governorship after finding the experience too difficult and demanding.
Looking at the geographical makeup of Barataria Settlement, it is possible to
further conjecture as to why it may have been named after Sancho’s isle. It is located at
the tip of an island, one whose cays hold shallow waters. Therefore, while beautiful and
enticing to look at, it is an area that is treacherous to unsuspecting boatmen and therefore
deceptive because it is not the paradise it initially appears to be. As with the Trinidadian
Barataria, Barataria Settlement is free of historical implications, since written
documentation linking its namer and Don Quixote to it has disappeared. Once again, this
allows for the interpreters who are unfamiliar with Cervantes’s text to construe their own
signification surrounding the name of this area of land. Ironically, it is curious to note
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that, as the signifier has traveled so far beyond the limits of its textual origin, it has come
full circle as regards being an ambiguous signifier. While Cervantes’s Barataria is elusive
in its myriad of possible significations, this extratextual Barataria has become a signifier
that, over time, has journeyed from its origin of multiple meanings to become a shell of a
word devoid of connotation.
There is one last important device that I would like to examine in connection with
humor and journey. While I have just offered examples of geographic, psychological, and
physical traveling and comicality, dialogue also corresponds to the scope of journey and
humor. Dialogue allows for transitions and elements of change, quite literally altering the
direction of a text. Its composition serves to destabilize an otherwise staid narrative.
Unlike monologue, where one character relates information but does not necessarily
receive input that would influence his or her way of thinking, when a conversation takes
place information is exchanged. This exchange has an effect on the characters. When
Don Quixote and Sancho discuss the role of a squire in Part II, chapter 28, Sancho learns
what is expected of him, because he is directly affected by Don Quixote’s explanations.
Sancho’s question to Don Quixote regarding payment in turn alters Don Quixote’s
previous understanding of squiredom, since he is forced to reckon with a new notion not
formerly mentioned in books of chivalry, which serve as his source of knowledge.
Through dialogue, then, bonds to knowledge and belief systems are questioned,
reinforced, discarded, or adapted. Conversation carries the individual into a new
understanding of him or herself with relation to the world. Dialogue is a journey in
mental processing and development.
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Depending on the dialogue, or the way in which it is narrated, it may even mimic
travel patterns. Sancho, for instance, many times talks in a manner that is similar to the
way in which he meanders on his donkey. He is capable of wandering from one point to
another, haphazardly making wrong turns and losing himself in proverb after proverb.
Don Quixote, like a back seat driver, often fails to appreciate Sancho’s ramblings,
preferring him to stick to the straight and narrow. As a metaphor for journey, a dialogue
is capable of reflecting roaming, deviations, flights, treks, migrations, and other types of
travel. It sometimes reaches its destination in the form of a conclusion or agreement but
other times is hijacked off into another direction or left hanging up in the air and
abandoned. As a result, dialogue can also facilitate humorous episodes, because it is
through verbal interactions between two or more characters that confusion arises, contrast
in opinion occurs, personalities are made fun of, and jokes are shared, among other
things.
In the middle of Part I, when Sancho returns from supposedly delivering Don
Quixote’s letter to Dulcinea, Don Quixote wants to know about every detail of their
encounter. The readers are aware that Sancho never makes it to Dulcinea and that he
forgot to take his master’s letter with him. In the dialogue that follows, he is inventing
what he relays to his master based on the knowledge that Dulcinea is Aldonza Lorenzo, a
neighbor of his who works as a farm girl. His rough portrayal of her is in stark contrast to
the peerless description Don Quixote expects to hear. When Sancho states that he has
informed Dulcinea of Don Quixote’s penance in the Sierra Morena and that his master
curses his luck, Don Quixote corrects him, and what follows is a humorous exchange of
misconstructions:
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“There you were wrong,” said Don Quixote. “I do not curse my fortune, but rather
bless it, for it has made me worthy of the love of so high a lady as Dulcinea of El
Toboso.”
“Aye, so high she is,” answered Sancho, “that she’s a good hand’s breadth taller
than I am.”
“How is that, Sancho?” said Don Quixote. “Have you measured yourself with
her?”
“It happened,” answered Sancho, “that when I was helping her raise a sack of
wheat onto an ass, we came so close together that I couldn’t help seeing that she
was taller than me by a good span.”
“True,” answered Don Quixote, “her stature is adorned with a thousand million
graces of soul. Now, there is one thing you must not deny me, Sancho. When you
approached her, did you not perceive a Sabaean odor, an aromatic fragrance,
something sweet – I cannot find a name to describe it – a scent, an essence, as if
you were in some dainty glover’s shop.”
“All I can vouch for,” said Sancho, “is that I got a whiff of something a bit
mannish; this must have been because she was sweating and a bit on the run.”
“It could not have been that,” answered Don Quixote, “but you must have had a
cold in your head or else smelled yourself, for I know well the scent of that rose
among thorns, that lily of the fields, that liquid amber.”
“That may be so,” answered Sancho, “for many a time I’ve noticed the same
smell off myself as I perceived of her ladyship Dulcinea; but there’s no wonder in
that, for one devil is the dead spit of another.” (311)
This is a dialogue of comedy and errors and is a rich example of how two characters take
a journey in discourse together, but with each interpreting the other’s words and
modifying their perceptions regarding the image of Dulcinea. The humor found in this
example is multi-layered, with Sancho’s lie regarding his encounter with Dulcinea
serving as the foundation. Because the readers are informed a priori about this, a
humorous situation is anticipated. The readers are also aware of the huge gap in
description between Don Quixote’s vision of Dulcinea and Sancho’s understanding of
her. Through this contrast in viewpoints, then, there is space for comic elements to
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surface, which is what happens via wordplay and misinterpretation on the part of the
characters.
In hearing, for example, Don Quixote refer to Dulcinea as lofty (alta), Sancho
quips that she is actually taller than himself, the humor here being that this is the opposite
of what is desirable in a fair maiden. Don Quixote, however, fails to understand this,
since he is only able to filter the information through his chivalric mindset, and instead
interprets Sancho’s comment as an affirmation of what he just had proclaimed. He
quickly changes the subject to ask about Dulcinea’s delicate aroma. Sancho, fully
enmeshed in his lie, insists that she smells bad. He even goes so far as to confuse the lofty
and base images of Dulcinea by referring to her as odiferous and as “her ladyship
Dulcinea” all within the same sentence. It is as if Sancho has fooled himself into
believing that he has talked with Dulcinea, so insistent is he in making this lie credible to
Don Quixote.
From an external perspective, the readers are able to enjoy the various levels of
humor present here. The initial lie by Sancho is compounded by Don Quixote’s
unwavering conviction of Dulcinea’s beauty, which in turn leads to Sancho’s fraudulent
rebuttals maintaining his viewpoint that Dulcinea is just as vulgar and smelly as he is. His
refutations of Don Quixote’s replies, in the form of puns and word play, add to the
comicality of the scene. Both hear the other only to a certain degree and interpret the
information exchanged. In Don Quixote’s case, it is viewed through a chivalric frame of
reference, while Sancho bases his earthy description on what he remembers of his
neighbor. The readers, by perceiving the multiple layers of humor present in this
dialogue, are able to interpret more fully the innuendos as well as the characters’
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mindsets. By understanding the initial deception, Don Quixote’s naïveté or monomania,
and Sancho’s insistence, the readers are provided with a journey vis-à-vis the different
levels of humor contained in this brief dialogue.
Another example of a humorous dialogue, albeit for different reasons, takes place
in Part II, chapter 5, when Sancho returns home and talks with his wife Teresa about what
will happen once he receives his governorship. Their conversation reflects what Bakhtin
refers to as the chronotope of encounter, which is the most important chronotope
according to him. In the encounter, “the temporal element predominates, and it is marked
by a higher degree of intensity in emotions and values” (Dialogic 243). In this episode,
the readers learn that something has changed regarding how Sancho is perceived by
others. While not the first example of what Salvador de Madariaga refers to as the
quixotization of Sancho, it is the first time other characters within the text mention it. It
takes place after Sancho and Don Quixote have agreed to sally forth again. Sancho
returns home to begin preparing for the journey and his wife can tell he is happy. She
begins the dialogue by asking what good news he could be bringing that makes him so
merry. Sancho answers cryptically, “Wife, if God were willing, I’d be very glad to be less
merry than I am this instant” (557). Teresa responds that she does not understand him.
What ensues is a lengthy dialogue in which Sancho suggests the possibility of social
climbing by way of economic gain, and Teresa reinforces the status quo concerning
maintaining the social positions into which they were born. In addition to the subject
under discussion, the way in which Sancho expresses himself here is important. Both of
these aspects come under scrutiny in this chapter, because they appear to reflect a change
in Sancho.
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In stopping to analyze how time and space cross here, the readers can deduce that,
based on the information provided by the narrator, different factors influencing the
temporal realm of this chronotope have changed. Sancho, it appears, is not the same as he
was in Part I because both the translator and Teresa react to Sancho’s manner of
expressing himself with incredulousness. The first line of the chapter begins, “The
translator of this history, when he reaches the fifth chapter, declares that he considers it
apocryphal because in it Sancho talks in a style that is far superior to what one would
expect from one of so limited an understanding, and he makes such subtle comments that
they seem beyond the range of his intelligence” (557). As if the narrator had not called
enough attention to Sancho’s verboseness, he interrupts Sancho later in the chapter with
the comment that “it was this style of speech and Sancho’s remarks further on that made
the translator, so he says, take the chapter to be apocryphal” (560). A page and a half
later, the narrator again suspends Sancho’s rebuttal to his wife by adding, parenthetically,
“(These remarks of Sancho are another reason for the translator’s former statement that
this chapter is apocryphal, for they are beyond the mental capacity of our honest
Sancho)” (562). Through these three interjections, the narrator emphasizes that the
translator, at least, takes issue with the Sancho presented to us here, because he appears to
be more intelligent and expresses himself more eloquently than in previous occasions.
From within the framework of the conversation, Teresa reinforces the translator’s
observations several times. At the beginning of this dialogue between Teresa and her
spouse, when Sancho mentions that he would be happy to be less merry if God so wanted
it, Teresa remarks, “I don’t get your meaning, husband” (557). A little later on, she states,
“Look here, Sancho, . . . since you’ve become a limb to a knight errant you talk so
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roundabout that nobody can understand you” (558). Teresa underscores that Sancho’s
manner of speaking has become harder for her to understand since he has begun to work
as Don Quixote’s squire. Towards the end of their conversation, after a particularly
lengthy explanation by Sancho of what a priest had preached about during the previous
Lent, Teresa answers, “I can’t make head or tail of you, husband, . . . Do what you will,
and don’t break my head with your orating and speechifying” (562). Her comments
coincide with the translator’s, in that Sancho is acting differently now. It is through this
conversation between Sancho and Teresa that the readers are lead to believe a temporal
transition has taken place in Sancho. Sancho voices his opinion, Teresa and the translator
react with a certain degree of emotional intensity, and through this juncture the readers
understand that a change either in character or in perception has transpired. Comparing
Sancho’s style of speech in this chapter with how he expressed himself previously, one
could say that Sancho was more often portrayed as a simpleton than as an eloquent talker.
While he continually attempted to bring Don Quixote down to earth with logical
arguments or by pointing out, for instance, that there were windmills rather than giants,
Sancho nonetheless tripped over his proverbs and confused words when trying to
expound on his opinions. One only has to think of his reconstruction of Don Quixote’s
letter to Dulcinea in Part I, chapter 26, when he talks with the curate and the barber.
But Sancho was also capable of astute judgment, such as when he saw through
Don Quixote’s visions and attempted to persuade his master to not attack the flocks of
sheep (I: 18) or the barber on his mule (I: 21). Antonio Barbagallo, in “Sancho no es, se
hace,” offers the explanation that most of what Sancho is accused of being by the narrator
and other characters (simple, gluttonous, and a drunkard), does not coincide with how
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Sancho actually behaves in the text. As Barbagallo points out, regarding the translator’s
comments in Part II, chapter 5, “Este supuesto cambio del que habla el traductor, no es
otra cosa que la revelación que Sancho hace de sí mismo. Este primer crítico del Quijote
había llegado a sus conclusiones atendiendo a lo que decían de Sancho, más que a lo que
decía Sancho” (52). All of this now begs the question: has Sancho changed or is the
perception of Sancho by other characters too stultifying? At the end of Part I, when
Sancho loudly laments what he thinks is the death of his master, he extols Don Quixote in
a long speech ending with, “Resister of perils, sufferer of affronts, lover without cause,
imitator of the good, scourge of the wicked, enemy of the base! In a word, knight errant,
which is the highest thing anyone could say!” (512). Save the accidental inversion by
Sancho of “O humble to the haughty and arrogant to the humble” (512), Sancho’s speech
is eloquent, but no one comments on this. While the narrator refers to his lament as droll
(risueño), one can only assume that this is because of Sancho’s exaggerated exclamations
as opposed to what is a poetically-stated expression of grief. Neither the narrator nor the
translator take issue with Sancho’s eulogy, which imitates his master’s manner of
speaking and reflects a style of speech found in books of chivalry, rather than a peasant’s
speech. Since Sancho’s language is not indicative of his social class, it would be possible
to refer to his quixotization here, but no one does. On the very next page, Sancho has
arrived home to his wife and informs her that “there’s nothing in this world so pleasant as
for an honest man to be squire to a knight errant on the prowl for adventures. . . . It’s a
fine thing to be gadding about spying for chances, crossing mountains, exploring woods,
climbing rocks, visiting castles, lodging in inns at our own sweet will, with devil a
maravedí to pay” (514). Here, again, he echoes Don Quixote’s sentiments on knight
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errantry and reproduces his verbal mannerisms, although neither the translator nor Teresa
seems to notice.
Since Sancho has always been wordy in his contestations, and because he
fluctuates between base vocabulary and eloquent speech, it is difficult to find an exact
moment in the novel where he leaves his old peasant mannerisms behind and opts for an
erudite method of speech. He alternates between both, even during the dialogue with
Teresa in Part II, chapter 5, where he begins by speaking to her using vos and then
changes to the tú form. This is an obvious example of an alteration in linguistic register,
from formal to informal speech, and it represents an adjustment in familiarity with his
wife. But, again, this is something he does in an earlier conversation with Teresa (I: 52).
What this episode highlights is Teresa and the translator’s awareness of the articulate side
of Sancho and therefore their belief that he has changed.
This conversation between Sancho and Teresa serves as the crux of several
variations on the temporal and spatial elements. It functions “as the primary means for
materializing time in space [and] emerges as a center for concretizing representation”
(Bakhtin, Dialogic 250). Within the space of a dialogue held in a home, the readers are
privy to Teresa’s perplexity towards a side of her husband that she seems not to have
previously noticed. Sancho, through his usage of verbose lexicon and in his passionate
support of social mobility, demonstrates his ability to manipulate words with the same
ease that his master does. Slightly outside of the space where this dialogue occurs, the
narrator penetrates the link between the readers and the inner characters, making his
presence known to the readers, all the while bringing to the fore what the translator
understands to be an inaccuracy on the part of Sancho. This encounter between Sancho
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and his wife represents a journey in perceptions on the part of Teresa and the translator. It
also serves as a concrete example of Sancho’s development as a character since
becoming a squire.
In conclusion, I would like to lead into chapter three by offering a brief analysis
regarding the difference in journey and humor as found in Cervantes’s Don Quixote and
Avellaneda’s apocryphal Part II. While both tomes employ the techniques of journey and
humor, they are integrally different in terms of purpose and effect. The essential
distinction concerning how journey is utilized stems from how the two authors employ
these literary devices. Cervantes uses journey to open up the narrative and give free rein,
so to speak, to his characters. In his novel, journey incorporates elements of autonomy
and exploration. Throughout the various types of journeys analyzed above, coupled with
humorous effects, there exists an undercurrent of growth and rejuvenation, because the
characters learn from their new encounters.
In general, I do not find this to be the case in Avellaneda’s book. Here journey is
utilized merely as a tool for moving the plot along. The sense of exploration and
discovery are absent and, rather than evolving characters, there exists stagnation due to
the excessive manipulations of Avellaneda to define and limit his characters’ roles. As a
result of the lack of journey, or adventure, in this text, the examples of humor that appear
are stilted and do not foster growth. Sancho, for example, has been typecast from the
beginning of the novel as a court buffoon and he is never allowed to go beyond this role.
His dialogues with the other characters, especially with his master, are rarely journeys in
discovery or stichomythia, but rather serve just to relay information to the readers and
move the plot along. The conversation between master and squire, so rich in opportunity
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for both the characters and the readers in Cervantes’s version, in Avellaneda’s only
function as fodder for ridicule on the part of the readers and other characters.
By comparing the concept of journey with regard to humor as presented by both
authors, the key difference is that Cervantes’s utilization of this mechanism provides for a
renewing of the text and characters. Together with humor, there is an encouragement of
possibilities. Avellaneda’s type of journey, however, does not work to promote growth
and therefore only adds to an artistic paralysis in the narrative. His humor is harnessed so
as to maintain the well-defined limitations of each character.
In this chapter, I have attempted to analyze the relationship between journey and
humor in Cervantes’s Don Quixote and how they both affect the characters and the
storyline. Journey, in the general sense of the word, signifies change. It represents motion
as well as transformation, because of exposure to new impressions and encounters. The
element of travel within a text increases the probability of humor emerging. Journey not
only opens up a narrative to the possibility of comic elements but also has the same
destabilizing effect on a narrative that humor does. Humor serves to provoke transitions
or changes, the most obvious being laughter on the part of the interpreter. Lastly, it
should be pointed out that a symbiotic relationship can exist between journey and humor,
where one facilitates the other. With reference to Don Quixote, the importance of both
journey and humor is essential in understanding that, without either of these two
elements, Cervantes’s text would literally go nowhere.
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CHAPTER III
HUMOR IN CERVANTES AND AVELLANEDA:
UN SENDERO QUE SE BIFURCA
The name ‘Avellaneda’ triggers the association of the words ‘impostor’ and ‘copy
cat,’ because of this author’s continuation of the original Don Quixote. Nonetheless, it is
sometimes conjectured that had it not been for the apocryphal version, Cervantes may
never have gotten around to publishing his own Part II. Even so, the audacity of
Avellaneda continues to overshadow this backhanded favor he did to literary history.
Rather than center on different aspects contained in this novel, the research on
Avellaneda more often than not strives to identify who he was or focuses on the issue of
his impact on Cervantes’s second part. For this reason, in this chapter I compare and
contrast the types of humor that surface in both Cervantes’s and Avellaneda’s novels. At
first, I discuss the more prominent theories of influence between the two authors, in order
to provide background information that will hopefully aid in better understanding the
humor in both texts. It is my intent to show that, although the 1614 and 1615 novels share
an initial resemblance, their visions of comicality are divergent, thereby rendering both
works unique in their own right. Nonetheless, although they are dissimilar in style and
humor, both texts need to be read by the scholar who wishes to attain a more complete
understanding of Cervantes’s masterpiece.
Although Avellaneda’s novel was published a year before Cervantes’s, there is
quite a bit of speculation as to who influenced whom. Some believe that Cervantes had
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almost finished Part II and that as he was writing chapter 59, he discovered Avellaneda’s
version. Stephen Gilman, in Cervantes y Avellaneda, observes,
Cervantes no sabía de la existencia del Quijote apócrifo antes de escribir el
capítulo LIX de la Segunda Parte, por tres razones: en primer lugar, lo dice él
mismo, y no tenemos por qué ponerlo en duda; en segundo lugar, imita algunos
rasgos del estilo de Avellaneda después del capítulo LIX, pero no antes; en tercer
lugar, después de ese capítulo se da prisa en terminar la obra, ocasionando un
cambio en el ritmo y en los acontecimientos, perceptible a primera vista para todo
lector sensible. Por ello, y rechazando para la mayor parte de los casos de la
posibilidad de una coincidencia, Avellaneda tiene que haber imitado a Cervantes.
Pero dado el carácter poco preciso de las semejanzas, es de suponerse que
Avellaneda no tuvo conocimiento directo del original. Debió haberlo sabido de
oídas. (175)
Gilman claims that Avellaneda overheard Cervantes read or discuss a part of his text,
which he then stole to fashion his own creation. But critics such as Ramón Menéndez
Pidal and Alfonso Martín Jiménez believe that it was Cervantes who obtained a copy of
Avellaneda’s version, using it as the starting point for his own second part. In Cervantes
y Pasamonte, Martín Jiménez writes,
Cervantes conoció el manuscrito del Quijote de Avellaneda antes de empezar a
escribir la segunda parte de su Quijote y, como veremos, se sirvió de él para
escribir todos los capítulos de esta obra. Y el hecho de que mencione
expresamente por primera vez el Quijote apócrifo en el capítulo 59, obedece a que
fue en ese momento cuando conoció que la obra de su rival había sido por fin
publicada, adquiriendo una categoría más preocupante que aconsejaba una
respuesta directa. (143)
This theory helps to explain why there are various similarities between the storylines of
the two narratives. With regard to Cervantes’s decision to mention the apocryphal text
and characters in his second part, Menéndez Pidal believes that it was Avellaneda’s
inflamatory prologue that sparked Cervantes’s furious response in chapter 59:
“Avellaneda, al imprimir su obra, añadiría el prólogo agresivo, el cual, al ser leído por
Cervantes, halló repulsa en el capítulo LIX del verdadero Quijote” (64). All of these
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critics offer plausible explanations to back up their arguments. However, because we
know so little about Avellaneda and because neither author admitted to copying from the
other’s Part II, it is impossible to reach a completely satisfactory conclusion. All of this
begs the question as to why, if Cervantes knew who Avellaneda was, he never named his
spurious rival, which may have helped future critics set the record straight in addition to
proving who influenced whom. Martín Jiménez credits the apocryphal Guzman de
Alfarache with affecting Cervantes’s decision to not identify the author:
Cervantes, que conocía bien el caso de Mateo Alemán y había leído atentamente
sus obras y sus prólogos . . . , quiso seguir su ejemplo, y decidió imitar la segunda
parte de Avellaneda para construir la suya. No obstante, y contrariamente a
Alemán, Cervantes decidió ocultar que estaba sirviéndose en todo momento de la
obra de su rival, seguramente porque el Quijote apócrifo, a diferencia de la obra
de Mateo Lujan de Sayavedra, aún no había sido publicado y era menos conocido,
y Cervantes no se sentía en la obligación de mencionarlo, evitando así que su
enemigo cobrara renombre a su costa. Por lo demás, y como también había hecho
Alemán, Cervantes denunciaría la falsedad del nombre y del lugar de origen de
imitador, y sugeriría en el cuerpo de su obra su verdadero nombre. (176)
But if Cervantes did leave literary clues in the hopes of slyly exposing his rival’s name,
none of these hints were explicit enough and critics to this day continue to speculate over
who Avellaneda was. Vladimir Nabokov, in Lectures on Don Quixote, hypothesizes
about what motivated Cervantes to write Don Quixote. He suggests that poverty played a
factor but, in the second part, that Cervantes’s development of narrative techniques was
overshadowed by a sense of frustration:
This carefree playing with slick devices must have been little in keeping with
Cervantes’s actual mood in 1603 or 1604. He was working furiously, without
rereading or planning. Poverty prodded the writing of the first part. Poverty and
exasperation engendered the second part produced ten years later, for during the
writing of this second part Cervantes had to cope with an enchanter in real life as
cruel as any he had invented to torment his invented hero and more alive than the
grave, eloquent, and meticulous historian he invented to record the exploits of his
invented hero. (77)
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This interpretation of how Cervantes felt, although speculative on Nabokov’s part, offers
a possible reading into Cervantes’s motivation. According to him, Cervantes writes Part
II for economic reasons but also as a reaction to his rival’s impudence and in order to
recuperate his creation. Nabokov’s subsequent conjecture is even more interesting. He
states,
Generations of Cervantesists have tried to find Avellaneda’s real name
anagrammatically or acrostically hidden in the first lines of the spurious Don
Quixote. Let me drop the dark hint that a great-grandmother of Cervantes was
called Juana Avellaneda,11 and that some have contended that the fake Don
Quixote was composed by Cervantes himself for the express purpose of having at
hand a new device in the second part that he signed—his own people meeting
people belonging to the Avellaneda book. I repeat, nobody knows who
Avellaneda really was, and his style is different from that of Cervantes’s, being
less ample, more pointed, with briefer descriptions. (79)
This is an amazing idea, because it requires an incredible amount of work on Cervantes’s
part, because the two novels’ styles of writing are very different, and because Nabokov
does not back up this assertion with any proof in the form of early manuscripts or other
evidence. Nonetheless, this theory is appealing to me because it would fit with
Cervantes’s profound capability to play with the literary parameters of metafiction. It is
true that both authors have different styles of writing; however, if Cervantes were capable
of imitating the writing style of another author, or altering his own style as he does in
comparison to La Galatea and Los trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda, for example, this
would explain why critics have always had problems with the similarities and points of
influence between these two texts. There is no doubt that Cervantes would be up to the
11
In the preface of his 1885 edition of Don Quixote, John Ormsby discusses Cervantes’s heritage and
writes, “Of the line that settled in Andalusia, Diego de Cervantes, Commander of the Order of Santiago,
married Juana Avellaneda, daughter of Juan Arias de Saavedra, and had several sons, of whom one was
Gonzalo Gomez, Corregidor of Jerez and ancestor of the Mexican and Columbian branches of the family;
and another, Juan, whose son Rodrigo married Doña Leonor de Cortinas, and by her had four children,
Rodrigo, Andrea, Luisa, and Miguel, our author.”
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task, because he is such a versatile writer, but there is no written proof to back up
Nabokov’s speculation. Nabokov adds that “writing under another name a pretended, a
spurious, continuation in order to intrigue the readers of the authentic one would have
been a little moonburst of artistic technique. Avellaneda himself should have turned out
to be, in a disguise of mirrors, Cervantes” (81). This would also explain why Cervantes
never reveals his rival’s name. For Nabokov, it would be just another game, albeit long
and drawn out, that Cervantes would be playing with the readers.
At the other end of the spectrum, in pondering why Avellaneda would be inspired
to continue Cervantes’s work, James Iffland theorizes that this author is a nobleman who
felt threatened by the ease with which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza overcame barriers
of social hierarchy. He writes,
Mi hipótesis es que se trata de un individuo muy consciente de la enorme crisis
socioeconómica que está atravesando España, de las múltiples tensiones que están
sacudiendo la formación social. Como tantos otros intelectuales afiliados
ideológicamente con el status quo, percibe amenazas por todas partes, amenazas
que requieren contramedidas apropiadas. No es que el Quijote de 1605 represente
un ataque directo contra ese orden que quiere proteger, pero sí, en medio de toda
su comicidad (y mediante su comicidad), sintoniza oblicuamente con esos
vectores desestabilizadores que motivan tanta preocupación. Su peculiar
dinámica, con las resonancias que emite, requiere una neutralización eficaz, por
encima de cualquier vendetta que quiera realizar Avellaneda contra un
contrincante del mundo literario. (De fiestas y aguafiestas 224)
For Iffland, Avellaneda wanted to rewrite Don Quixote and put the subversive
protagonists in their place. In the last sentence from the quote above, Iffland is referring
to the argument of critics such as Gilman that Avellaneda wrote his novel as a result of
the attacks Cervantes made against Lope de Vega in Part I. Gilman explains the possible
reason behind Avellaneda’s devotion to Lope:
Para Avellaneda, España no sólo se había hecho defensora de la causa divina, sino
que había emulado la ontología divina con sus incomparables organizaciones
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sociales, militares y eclesiásticas. Y esto fue quizás el verdadero motivo de su
admiración por Lope. Aunque Avellaneda mismo carecía por completo del genio
creador de Lope, el teatro lopesco infundía grandeza a sus valores. (Cervantes
138)
Cervantes’s cloaked references to Lope de Vega in Part I, therefore, would be interpreted
by Avellaneda as attacks against Catholicism. As a result, Avellaneda created a second
part in order to reestablish the roles of religious order and social hierarchy, which
Cervantes had thrown into question by assailing the Church vis-à-vis Lope de Vega in
Part I and also by allowing an hidalgo to knight himself and a peasant to dream of a
governorship. Iffland interprets Avellaneda’s reformation of Cervantes’s two protagonists
as a way of keeping Don Quixote and Sancho Panza from stepping beyond the roles into
which they were born. The apocryphal continuation, for Iffland, was written for political
reasons. For Gilman, it was more religiously motivated. However, in Towards a
Revaluation of Avellaneda’s False Quixote, E. T. Aylward sees Avellaneda as more of an
opportunistic writer who is eager to cash in on the success of Part I and chooses to imitate
the type of humor found at the beginning of the 1605 novel. Avellaneda, along with many
other readers of the first part, considered “these ‘early’ pre-Cardenio adventures to be the
‘best’ (i.e., the most humorous) chapters, and therefore the episodes most worthy of
imitation in a sequel” (11). Aylward posits that the initial chapters of Cervantes’s novel
do not hold the complexity and artistic development of the characters that the later
chapters, beginning around the episode in the Sierra Morena, do. He states, “the
sophisticated, ‘modern’ novelistic techniques we now commonly associate with
Cervantes’s creative genius actually begin to manifest themselves only in Chapter 23, the
strange encounter with Cardenio that launches the Sierra Morena adventure” (11).
Avellaneda, either incapable or not interested in imitating the level of narrative
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complexity that Cervantes attains by the latter half of his first part, instead attempts to
replicate the type of humor found at the beginning of Cervantes’s novel. Regardless of
his motivation, however, the issue of imitation has always been the topic of concern in
the majority of analyses on Avellaneda’s text. Martín Jiménez, in reiterating his theory
that Cervantes worked from Avellaneda’s manuscript, explains why critics through the
years have tended to disparage Avellaneda for attempting to usurp Cervantes’s text,
El Quijote cervantino fue ensalzado por los autores románticos . . . , que veían en
don Quijote al prototipo del héroe idealista y fracasado, y la importancia
conferida en el Romanticismo a la originalidad creativa determinó que pasara
inadvertida la naturaleza imitativa de la segunda parte del Quijote cervantino, a la
vez que se estigmatizaba y casi se condenaba al olvido la obra de Avellaneda,
debido al carácter claramente perceptible y confesado de su imitación. Como
consecuencia de ello, la segunda parte del Quijote de Cervantes ha venido
entendiéndose desde los orígenes de la Historia de la Literatura como una obra
autónoma, cuando no lo es, y su supuesta autonomía sólo ha sido cuestionada por
algunos autores a partir del siglo XX. (177)
It is important, in other words, to read and compare Avellaneda’s text with Cervantes’s, if
a true appreciation of Don Quixote is really desired. Every critic has his or her own
theory regarding influence and Avellaneda. I personally believe Avellaneda did not like
the direction Cervantes took in Part I and improvised his own version accordingly. When
Cervantes realized this, he altered his text to incorporate characters and elements from the
apocryphal version, which he had only heard about but had not read, as will be further
explained below. Regardless of which theory is completely unfounded, only partially
correct, or the most likely, what the speculation does affirm is that there is an inextricable
connection between Cervantes’s Don Quixote and Avellaneda’s narrative. I mention this
because many critics have spent hours fiercely defending their point of view concerning
authorship and chronology of when the texts were written, but there are still very few
who have gone beyond these two problems to actually analyze the comicality found in
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the apocryphal text, whether in relation to Cervantes’s magnum opus, or on its own. It is
true that Avellaneda usurped Cervantes’s creation and altered it to fit his own enterprise.
However, according to my interpretation of his text, he has not chosen to fully imitate
Cervantes but rather has selected only certain characteristics from the 1605 novel and
exploited them to formulate something very different. Much like a puppeteer stealing
someone else’s puppets, Avellaneda’s aim was not to replicate Cervantes’s creation
faithfully, but rather to play with it as he saw fit. In other words, the apocryphal version is
not a novel intending to seamlessly imitate the original. From my point of view,
Avellaneda did not like the course Cervantes had taken by the end of Part I and decided
to commandeer the narrative and carry it into a different humorous direction.
Given the varying observations and analyses that have been made over the years
regarding influence, several of which I have just mentioned above, it is impossible to
prove for certain the degree to which either author imitated the other. However, it is
feasible to assess the comic elements present in each text and compare their overall
effects. Both Cervantes’s and Avellaneda’s texts were written in a comic vein, utilizing
an array of literary techniques to provoke laughter. The humor found in the two versions
of Don Quixote incorporates the baser elements of comicality, such as that of a vulgar,
physical, or corporeal nature, as well as a more intricate level of wit via dialogue, word
play, and narration. As pointed out by Aylward, Cervantes’s novel initially favors the
physical type of humor, where Don Quixote fights with a windmill, a Biscayan squire, a
lusty muleteer, and the galley slaves, among other things. As the novel progresses and
then continuing into the second part, this physical humor is still present, but then a more
sophisticated humor contained principally in the dialogues and narrative techniques
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gradually takes precedence. It is this initial, more physical humor that Avellaneda
attempts to imitate in his continuation of Cervantes’s novel. This is also true for Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza, who do not reach the level of intricacy in Avellaneda’s text
that they do in Cervantes’s. Rather, Avellaneda prefers to keep his protagonists confined
to the roles of madman and ‘gracioso,’ modeling them after the generally shallow
caricatures found in theater. Gilman points out, “Avellaneda parece haber sido—y si
comprendemos esto, muchos aspectos de su ‘arte’ quedan en claro—algo así como el
posible común denominador del público de la comedia” (Cervantes 138). Avellaneda
perhaps has in mind a theater audience as his readership. Aylward explains,
it should not surprise us that Avellaneda chose to cast his main characters as
stereotypical puppets: Don Quixote in the role of a chimerical lunatic, Sancho as a
simple-minded glutton. The Aragonese author’s modest goal was simply to write
another funny book, which is all that the original Don Quixote pretends to be prior
to the adventures in the Sierra Morena. As a consequence, Avellaneda opted to
continue the story according to the conventions and stereotypes of the popular
comedia, which is not surprising in view of his plainly indicated dedication to the
defense of Lope de Vega. (20)
Whether or not it is out of loyalty to Lope, or rather because a theater audience is the type
of readership he envisioned for his novel, Avellaneda keeps the characters in simple,
caricature-type roles. It is the ‘gracioso,’ for instance, who helps move the plot along
with his witty repartee or satirical interjections. Because he is usually a servant, as is
Sancho here, his commentary adds an unconventional perspective to situations. An
example of this occurs in chapter 10 of the apocryphal version, where the readers observe
Don Quixote in one of his fits of delirium. Don Álvaro, the Morisco gentleman that
interacts with Don Quixote throughout most of Avellaneda’s text, has filled the knight
errant’s head with the illusion of winning the tournament in Zaragoza and has just left the
room so that Don Quixote could dress:
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Fuése don Álvaro, y quedó el buen hidalgo con la fantasía llena de quimeras; y sin
poder reposar, se levantó y comenzó a vestirse, imaginando ahincadamente en su
negra sortija; y con la vehemente imaginación se quedó mirando al suelo sin
pestañear, con las bragas a medio poner; y de allí a un buen rato arremetió con el
brazo muy derecho hacia la pared, dando una carrera y diciendo:
—De la primera vez he llevado el anillo metido en la lanza; y así, vuesas
excelencias, rectísimos jueces, me manden dar el mejor premio, pues de justicia
se me debe, a pesar de la envidia de los circunstantes aventureros y miradores.
A la voz grande que dio, subieron un paje y Sancho Panza; y entrando dentro del
aposento, hallaron a don Quijote, las bragas caídas, hablando con los jueces,
mirando al techo; y como la camisa era un poco corta por delante, no dejaba de
descubrir alguna fealdad. Lo cual visto por Sancho Panza, le dijo:
—Cubra, señor Desamorado, ¡pecador de mí! el etcétera; que aquí no hay jueces
que le pretendan echar otra vez preso, ni dar doscientos azotes, ni sacar a la
vergüenza, aunque harto saca vuesa merced a ella las suyas sin para qué; que bien
puede estar seguro. (111)
Sancho is depicted here as a smart aleck, both reacting to the immodesty of Don Quixote
as well as playing with the words ‘etcétera’ and ‘vergüenza’ so as to provide comic relief
to what would otherwise be an indecent spectacle. His quips add humor and help
transform the scene of madness to one of laughter. This episode is a typical example of
how Sancho and his master are portrayed throughout Avellaneda’s novel, with Don
Quixote experiencing bouts of insanity while the squire comments on them to anyone
who will listen.
Don Quixote continually falls into a delirium that either temporarily immobilizes
him while he fantasizes, as in the above example, or he rashly acts out attacking anything
in his path. The role of the madman, because it is not as frequently utilized in theater as
the ‘gracioso’ and therefore does not offer Avellaneda as solid a template from which to
draw, is not as varied as is Sancho’s character. Sancho, as the comic relief element,
alternates between humorous bantering and foolishness. The aforementioned scene
echoes in some ways the episode in the authentic version of the Sierra Morena, when
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Sancho leaves Don Quixote to deliver the letter to Dulcinea. The knight has already
mentioned his plan to imitate Amadís de Gaula “haciendo aquí del desesperado, del
sandio y del furioso, por imitar juntamente al valiente don Roldán” (303-304). In truth,
Don Quixote seems to have been first inspired by Cardenio, about whose attacks of
insanity he has just learned. Curiously, the way in which the goat herder describes
Cardenio’s madness more closely resembles how Avellaneda’s protagonist acts. Speaking
to Don Quixote and Sancho about his encounter with Cardenio, the goat herder explains,
“Y estando en lo mejor de su plática, paró y enmudecióse; clavó los ojos en el suelo por
un buen espacio, . . . y por lo que hacía de abrir los ojos, estar fijo mirando al suelo sin
mover pestaña gran rato, y otras veces cerrarlos, apretando los labios y enarcando las
cejas, . . . se levantó con gran furia del suelo, donde se había echado, y arremetió con el
primero que halló junto a sí” (290). This abrupt mood swing that temporarily immobilizes
Cardenio is also what the apocryphal Don Quixote suffers from. It is possible to speculate
that Cardenio’s violent bouts may have served in part as the model for Avellaneda’s Don
Quixote. In contrast, the authentic Don Quixote is aware that he is imitating madness in
this scene. In order to prove to Sancho that he is mad, he puts on a brief performance
replicating his understanding of Amadís’s lunacy. As Sancho leaves with Dulcinea’s
letter, Don Quixote puts on a show for his squire: “Y desnudándose con toda priesa los
calzones, quedó en carnes y en pañales, y luego, sin más ni más, dio dos zapatetas en el
aire y dos tumbas la cabeza abajo y los pies en alto, descubriendo cosas que, por no
verlas otra vez, volvió Sancho la rienda a Rocinante, y se dio por contento y satisfecho de
que podía jurar que su amo quedaba loco” (317). Whereas Avellaneda’s version is crassly
funny, Cervantes’s stab at crude humor is related by the narrator and therefore is less
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aggressive. These two examples of raunchy humor serve as accurate representations of
how each author treats the baser elements of comedy. In general, Cervantes steers clear of
sexual or corporeal profanity, while Avellaneda incorporates it regularly throughout his
text. Regardless of the scatological or vulgar references made by both authors, although
more so by Avellaneda, it is interesting to note that neither pair of protagonists fall victim
to lewdness and that all four characters remain chaste both in thought and deed
throughout all of their adventures. On a side note, this is particularly unusual for both
Quixotes, considering the knights errant they strive to imitate did often partake in
amorous adventures.
Both authors also use dialogue in differing ways. The dialogue Avellaneda creates
between his characters tends to be shorter and less involved. The characters speak in
order to move the plot along rather than to ponder ideas or share perspectives on a
particular topic. Because Avellaneda is more interested in the action of the storyline than
in the dimension of the characters, dialogues that are short and fast-paced fit well here.
For instance, in chapter 2 of the apocryphal version, Sancho explains to Don Álvaro
Tarfe how Dulcinea received his master’s letter. Sancho is crass in his description of Don
Quixote’s love interest:
—¿Quiere saber, señor don Tarfe, lo que hizo la muy zurrada cuando le llevé esa
carta que ahora mi señor quiere leer? Estábase en la caballeriza la muy puerca,
porque llovía, hinchendo un serón de basura con una pala, y cuando yo le dije que
le traía una carta de mi señor (¡infernal torzón le dé Dios por ello!) tomó una gran
palada de estiércol que estaba más hondo y más remojado, y arrojómelo de boleo,
sin decir ¡agua va! en estas pecadoras barbas. Yo, como por mis pecados las tengo
más espesas que escobilla de barbero, estuve después más de tres días sin poder
acabar de agotar la porquería que en ellas me dejó perfectamente.
Dióse, oyendo esto, una palmada en la frente don Álvaro, diciendo:
—Por cierto, señor Sancho, que semejante porte que ése no le merecía la mucha
discreción vuestra.
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—No se espante vuesa merced—replicó Sancho—; que a fe que nos ha sucedido a
mí y a mi señor, andando por amor della en las aventuras o desventuras del año
pasado, darnos pasadas de cuatro veces muy gentiles garrotazos.
—Yo os prometo—dijo colérico don Quijote—que si me levanto, don bellaco
desvergonazdo, y cojo una estaca de aquel carro, que os muela las costillas y haga
que se os acuerde per omnia sœcula sœculorum.
—Amén—respondió Sancho.
Levantárase don Quijote a castigarle la desvergüenza, si don Álvaro no le tuviera
el brazo y le hiciera volver a sentar en su silla, haciendo con el dedo señas a
Sancho para que callase, con que lo hizo por entonces. (32)
Sancho is disrespectful both of Dulcinea and of his master. He refers to Dulcinea as a tart
and answers Don Quixote’s Latinism with an uppity ‘Amen.’ Avellaneda is good at
formulating rapid-fire repartee, which would work well in the theater, but he is either
incapable or uninterested in taking the time to develop these witty dialogues into fuller
conversations. Instead, he relies heavily on one character relaying the majority of the
information, as does Sancho here, and then often utilizes the narrator to fill in the missing
details. The above example is representative of how information is fed to the reader:
Sancho does the greater part of the talking and, after Don Quixote reacts to what he has
said, the dialogue stops and the narrator explains that Don Álvaro has stepped in to settle
the other two characters down. Aylward observes,
It must be admitted that Avellaneda has a certain flair for the kind of actionpacked situational comedy we associate with the Golden Age Spanish entremés,
but his comic debates are clearly no match for Cervantes’s. Avellaneda, whose
characters’ verbal exchanges . . . are only about half as long as Cervantes’s
originals, simply lacks the great writer’s genius for sustaining any amusing
dialogue. The author of the False Quixote had an abundance of good comic
concepts, but little talent for executing his schemes to their full comedic potential.
(47)
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Cervantes’s dialogues tend to be more complete. He utilizes Sancho’s rustic
proverbialism to counter the intellectualizing of his master, but these two sides serve as
two elements working together to create well-rounded conversations. In chapter 2 of this
thesis, I analyzed the dialogue between master and squire in which Sancho is inventing
his encounter with Dulcinea and Don Quixote can only comprehend this information
through a chivalric frame of reference (I: 31). The conversation stands on its own and the
narrator is not needed to explain the result of the dialogue. Whereas the humor contained
in Avellaneda’s dialogue above stems from Sancho’s blatant disrespect, in Cervantes’s
dialogue laughter is created due to the incongruity between Don Quixote’s lofty
interpretation of Dulcinea and Sancho’s course rendition in response. This is not to say
that Cervantes does not make use of the narrator in comical dialogues. In Part I, chapter
26, Sancho comes across the barber and curate on his way to deliver the letter to
Dulcinea. When he realizes he does not have it, the two friends ask him to repeat it from
memory. Here, the narrator is utilized to set the scene and then summarize the
experience:
Paróse Sancho Panza a rascar la cabeza para traer a la memoria la carta, y ya se
ponía sobre un pie, y ya sobre otro; unas veces miraba al suelo, otras al cielo, y al
cabo de haberse roído la mitad de la yema de un dedo, teniendo suspensos a los
que esperaban que ya la dijese, dijo al cabo de grandísimo rato:
—Por Dios, señor licenciado, que los diablos lleven la cosa que de la carta se me
acuerda; aunque en el principio decía: “Alta y sobajada señora.”
—No diría—dijo el barbero—sobajada, sino sobrehumana o soberana señora.
—Así es—dijo Sancho—. Luego, si mal no me acuerdo, proseguía . . . , si mal no
me acuerdo: “El llego y falto de sueño, y el ferido besa a vuestra merced las
manos, ingrata y muy desconocida hermosa,” y no sé qué decía de salud y de
enfermedad que le enviaba, y por aquí iba escurriendo, hasta que acababa en
“Vuestro hasta la muerte, el Caballero de la Triste Figura.”
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No poco gustaron los dos de ver la buena memoria de Sancho Panza, y
alabáronsela mucho, y le pidieron que dijese la carta otras dos veces, para que
ellos, asimesmo, la tomasen de memoria para trasladalla a su tiempo. (323)
The laughter is again directed at Sancho, but here he is being enjoyed for his faulty
memory as well as for his confusion of word choice, due to his lack of education. Being a
simple squire, his attempt to imitate the eloquent speech of his master, who in turn was
imitating the flowery language of chivalric romance, becomes a source of laughter. The
supplemental information provided by the narrator fleshes out the experience for the
reader. By describing how Sancho stopped to scratch his head and chew on his fingertip,
the narrator furnishes the readers with the nervousness and anxiety the squire was feeling
as he attempted to recall the letter from memory. After the dialogue ends, the narrator
steps in to summarize what happened next. Unlike the narration throughout the major part
of Avellaneda’s text, oftentimes in Cervantes’s work the narrator seems to merge with the
character he is describing. For instance, after he explains how the barber and curate asked
Sancho to repeat the letter several more times, the narrator begins to emulate Sancho’s
speech pattern when describing the promise Don Quixote has made to Sancho:
Dijo también como su señor, en trayendo que le trujese buen despacho de la
señora Dulcinea del Toboso, se había de poner en camino a procurar cómo ser
emperador, o, por lo menos, monarca, que así lo tenían concertado entre los dos; y
era cosa muy fácil venir a serlo, según era el valor de su persona y la fuerza de su
brazo; y que en siéndolo, le había de casar a él, porque ya sería viudo, que no
podía ser menos, y le había de dar por mujer a una doncella de la emperatriz,
heredera de un rico y grande estado de tierra firme, sin ínsulos ni ínsulas, que ya
no las quería. (323-24)
The choppy way that the narrator has recounted the information, plus the confusion of
“ínsulos ni ínsulas,” is an accurate imitation of how Sancho would have spoken.
Compared to the drier narrator in Avellaneda’s version, Cervantes’s adds a richer element
of humor to the text.
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In general, the narrator in Avellaneda’s novel plays a less prominent role and is
not as thoroughly developed as Cervantes’s narrator. There are very few times when
Avellaneda’s narrator attempts to play with the readers by not divulging pertinent
information and thereby keeping them in suspense, a technique frequently exploited in
the 1605 and 1615 versions. This narrator instead systematically relates every detail,
frequently to the point of excess, which is similar to the way a script writer delineates a
scene, but this unfortunately only bogs down Avellaneda’s novel. As Gilman observes,
“El estilo de Avellaneda intenta solamente expresar la construcción lógica de los
acontecimientos y evita por tanto todo ornamento que pueda distraer. . . . Es un
compendio intelectual de todo el material pertinente, y no una selección artística de él”
(Cervantes 140). Although Gilman is correct in stating that Avellaneda’s narrator does
relate information in a logical, matter-of-fact manner, his style is frequently so overly
detailed and descriptive that it easily distracts or overwhelms the readers with
unnecessary material that slows the plot down. This, combined with very few attempts at
building suspense into the narrative or reaching out to the readers, takes away from the
humorous dialogues and comic actions contained in the storyline. In chapter 12, for
instance, Avellaneda’s narrator explains to the readers how Don Álvaro and his friends
are playing a joke on Don Quixote by having the secretary dress up as a giant. The
narrator describes the scene,
Hase de advertir que entre don Álvaro Tarfe, don Carlos y el mismo secretario
había concierto hecho de traer aquella noche a la sala uno de los gigantes que
sacan en Zaragoza el día del Corpus en la procesión, que son de más de tres varas
en alto; y con serlo tanto, con cierta invención los trae un hombre solo sobre los
hombros. Pues estando la gente, como he dicho, en la sala, en recibiendo el recado
de don Carlos el secretario, entró con el gigante por un cabo della, que de
propósito estaba ya sin luz, y encima de la puerta por donde entró estaba en lo
alto, junto al techo, una ventana pequeña a modo de claraboya, que venía a dar en
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la cabeza del mismo gigante, por ser de su misma altura, y por la cual, arrimado a
ella, había, sin ser visto, de hablar el secretario, que en sacando y poniendo en
dicho puesto la que traía sobre sus hombros dicho gigante, se volvió a entrar para
ponerse en dicha ventanilla. (140)
Rather than having the giant enter the scene and scare everyone, leaving the readers in
suspense about what is really going on, Avellaneda has his narrator forewarn the readers
and this, combined with the detail ad nauseum surrounding the giant’s dimensions and
the room’s aspect, completely ruins the surprise. If we compare this scene to the episode
in Cervantes’s Part II, chapter 62, when Don Quixote is introduced to the enchanted head
in Barcelona, there is an equally detailed description but because the narrator is more
playful, the effect is different. To begin with, Don Antonio mentions the enchanted head
to Don Quixote, but only after having him swear to secrecy. He describes how it was
made by one of the best enchanters and sorcerers in the world and that its purpose is to
answer questions, but that it is mute on Fridays (coincidentally that very day). At the end
of Don Álvaro’s explanation, the narrator appears: “Admirado quedó don Quijote de la
virtud y propiedad de la cabeza, y estuvo por no creer a don Antonio. Pero por ver cuán
poco tiempo había para hacer la experiencia, no quiso decirle otra cosa sino que le
agradecía el haberle descubierto tan gran secreto” (496). Don Álvaro has planted the seed
of curiosity and the narrator, unwilling to give the secret away, only suggests that Don
Quixote does not fully believe his host but will wait to cast judgment until he can see it in
action the following day. The narrator then changes to another scene, leaving the readers
hanging over the outcome of the enchanted head, and does not return to the topic until
two pages later. At this point, the narrator explains that Don Antonio, Don Quixote,
Sancho, and two other friends enclosed themselves in the room with the enchanted head
in order to try it out, ending with, “Y si no eran los dos amigos de don Antonio, ninguna
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otra persona sabía el busilis del encanto, y aun si don Antonio no se le hubiera
descubierto primero a sus amigos, también ellos cayeran en la admiración en que los
demás cayeron, sin ser posible otra cosa: con tal traza y tal orden estaba fabricada” (499).
This is the first time that the narrator tips off the readers that this is some sort of prank,
but the readers are still unsure about how it is being carried out or what will happen. It is
not until after all of the participants have spoken with the enchanted head and the episode
has come to a close that the narrator finally jumps in to explain,
Con esto se acabaron las preguntas y las respuestas. Pero no se acabó la
admiración en que todos quedaron, excepto los dos amigos de don Antonio, que el
caso sabían. El cual quiso Cide Hamete Benengeli declarar luego, por no tener
suspenso al mundo, creyendo que algún hechicero y extraordinario misterio en la
tal cabeza se encerraba, y así, dice que don Antonio Moreno, a imitación de otra
cabeza que vio en Madrid, fabricada por un estampero, hizo ésta en su casa, para
entretenerse y suspender a los ignorantes. (501)
The narrator then provides a very lengthy description, even more detailed than the
aforementioned example in Avellaneda’s text, where he explains how and of what it was
made, and how Don Antonio’s nephew was inside of the mechanism responding to the
questions asked. The narrator ends by saying that after ten or twelve days its owner
decided to dismantle it for fear of repercussions from the Inquisition, but that Don
Quixote and Sancho were never the wiser to this. What is important with regard to the
relaying of information here is how this narrator waited to explain the enterprise until
after the protagonists were tricked by the enchanted head. As a result, the readers are also
caught up in the mystery, even though the narrator had alerted them that a prank was
afoot. By weaving the explanation around dialogue, instead of stating all of the facts at
the beginning of the scene, Cervantes’s narrator breaks up the monotony of the overlydetailed description. In chapter 18 of the second part, when Don Quixote and Sancho
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arrive at Don Diego’s home, the narrator jumps in to let the readers know, “Aquí pinta el
autor todas las circunstancias de la casa de don Diego, pintándonos en ellas lo que
contiene una casa de un caballero labrador y rico; pero al traductor desta historia le
pareció pasar estas y otras semejantes menudencias en silencio, porque no venían bien
con el propósito principal de la historia, la cual más tiene su fuerza en la verdad que en
las frías digresiones” (157). Whether this is a hidden attack on Avellaneda’s style of
narrating or not, this narrator seems to understand his audience better and therefore is
more adept at maintaining the readers’ attention by eliminating unnecessary details or by
planting suspense and intentionally delaying the delivery of pertinent information. A
clear example of this can also be seen in the chapter titles. Those of Avellaneda’s text are
straightforward, accurate summaries of their corresponding chapters. Cervantes’s
narrator, in parodying the style of the ornate but not always reliable chapter titles from
chivalric romances, plays with the readers by sometimes correctly describing what takes
place in the chapter but also by sometimes switching chapter titles or by describing
events in a title that do not take place in the corresponding chapter. The chapter title for
Part I, chapter 10 reads “De lo que más le avino a don Quijote con el vizcaíno y del
peligro en que se vio con una caterva de yangüeses,” even though the fight with the
Biscayan squire had already finished and Don Quixote and Sancho do not run into the
Yanguesan carriers until chapter 15. In Part I of the 1605 edition, the chapter titles
skipped from chapter 42 to chapter 44, leaving many to speculate that Cervantes either
forgot to demarcate where chapter 43 began or what it was about, or that he was once
again making sure the readers were paying attention. Tom Lathrop, in “El misterio del
epígrafe que falta en el Quijote (Capítulo 43, parte I),” believes this was an intentional
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error, because “así lo quiso Cervantes, en imitación de los descuidados libros de
caballerías” (119).12 This is a jocular narrator who enjoys playing with his audience.
Avellaneda’s narrator, in comparison, takes the more traditional role of relaying
information. When he does incorporate humor, it is strictly of a baser, more vulgar, type,
or it is sarcasm. An example of this can be seen in his description of Bárbara, the
companion Don Quixote and Sancho rescue halfway through the apocryphal version, and
who is a cross between Cervantes’s Maritornes and de Rojas’s Celestina. In chapter 23,
an initial description of Bárbara is provided by the narrator, “La mujer era tal, que pasaba
de los cincuenta, y tras tener bellaquísima cara, tenía un rasguño de a jeme en el carrillo
derecho, que le debieron de dar siendo moza por su virtuosa lengua y santa vida” (266).
She is an ugly, middle-aged woman who, as the narrator sarcastically insinuates, has a
scar on her left cheek as punishment for her less-than-virtuous lifestyle. The more
detailed description takes place a chapter later, when Don Quixote and Sancho,
accompanied by two officials, return to the inn where they had been staying and call out
to Bárbara, whom Don Quixote had described as the beautiful Queen of Zenobia:
Salió luego ella de la cocina, donde estaba, con una capa vieja del huésped por
saya; porque, como arriba queda dicho, había quedado la pobre en el bosque en
camisa, y faltábale el reparo que la había hecho el manto del ermitaño, y después
el de la ropa vieja de la mujer del mesonero, que hasta allí la había traído. Apenas
la vio don Quijote, cuando, con gran mesura, le dijo:
—Estos príncipes, soberana señora, quieren besar las manos a vuesa alteza.
12
It should be noted that, although most critics believe Cervantes wrote the chapter titles, there is
speculation that these were actually written by his publisher or by someone other than Cervantes.
For further information, please see Robert M. Flores’s “El caso del epígrafe desaparecido:
capítulo 43 de la edición príncipe de la primera parte del Quijote” as well as his The
Compositors of the First and Second Madrid Editions of Don Quixote, Part 1.
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Y entrándose tras esto con Sancho en la caballeriza para hacer desensillar y dar de
comer a Rocinante, salió ella a la puerta del mesón con la figura siguiente:
descabellada, con la madeja medio castaña y medio cana, llena de liendres y algo
corta por detrás la capa del huésped, que dijimos traía atada por la cintura en lugar
de faldellín: era viejísima y llena de agujeros, y sobre todo, tan corta que
descubría media pierna y vara y media de pies llenos de polvo, metidos en unas
rotas alpargatas, por cuyas puntas sacaban razonable pedazo de uñas sus dedos;
las tetas, que descubría entre la sucia camisa y faldellín dicho, eran negras y
arrugadas, pero tan largas y flacas, que le colgaban dos palmos; la cara, trasudada
y no poco sucia del polvo del camino y tizne de la cocina, de do salía; y
hermoseaba tan bello rostro el apacible lunar de la cuchillada que se le atravesaba.
En fin, estaba tal, que sólo podía aguardar un galeote de cuarenta años de buena
boya. (295)
The narrator, insistent on describing Bárbara’s apparel as accurately as possible,
reiterates how she came to be dressed that way several times. He also mentions three
times that she came out from the kitchen. This overly repetitive attention to detail,
however, only partially detracts from his repulsive description of Don Quixote’s Queen
of Zenobia, because it is so graphic. She is described as just about the farthest thing from
ideal beauty, but the narrator nonetheless ends with a sarcastic remark about her beautiful
scar and how the only one who might find her attractive would be someone who had been
a galley slave for forty years. This narrator’s capacity for humor extends beyond sarcasm
and into the realm of the grotesque, where his highlighting of Bárbara’s ugliness contrasts
directly with how Don Quixote envisions her. The narrator’s depiction of Bárbara and
Don Quixote’s treatment of her creates laughter due to this disparity in perceptions and
therefore the absurdity of Don Quixote’s proposal to have the officials kiss her hands, as
if she were someone of prominence. If we compare this description to the way
Cervantes’s narrator describes Maritornes in Part I, chapter 16, we find an entirely
different type of humor: “Servía en la venta, asimesmo, una moza asturiana, ancha de
cara, llana de cogote, de nariz roma, del un ojo tuerta y del otro no muy sana. Verdad es
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que la gallardía del cuerpo suplía las demás faltas: no tenía siete palmos de los pies a la
cabeza, y las espaldas, que algún tanto le cargaban, la hacían mirar al suelo más de lo que
ella quisiera” (209). Although this narrator also focuses on the defects of the servant girl,
the humor is more tongue-in-cheek and of a completely different tone than that of the
grotesque description of Bárbara. Maritornes has a wide face, flat nape and nose, and one
crossed eye and the other not too healthy. Instead of coming right out and calling her
short, the narrator states that the greatness of her height made up for all the other faults,
she not being more than seven hands tall. And rather than directly define her as a
hunchback, he remarks that she spends more time looking at the floor than she would
probably like due to her condition. In other words, instead of opting for a blatant, in-yourface description that relates every last detail, the narrator allows the readers to guess a
little as to what is being inferred. He is glib rather than graphic. Where Avellaneda’s
narrator opts for sarcasm and blue humor, Cervantes’s prefers a more subtle, playful type
of humor. Take, for instance, the manner in which the narrator goes off on a tangent
when describing the types of damsels usually protected by knights errant, in Part I,
chapter 9:
de aquellas que andaban con sus azotes y palafrenes, y con toda su virginidad a
cuestas, de monte en monte y de valle en valle; que si no era que algún follón, o
algún villano de hacha y capellina, o algún descomunal gigante las forzaba,
doncella hubo en los pasados tiempos que, al cabo de ochenta años, que en todos
ellos no durmió un día debajo de tejado, y se fue tan entera a la sepultura como la
madre que la había parido. (158)
This type of humor, describing damsels who wander over hill and dale with their
virginity in hand and who die virgins just like the mothers that bore them did, creates
laughter through the delivery of an unexpected idea. The narrator has taken the definition
of sheltered, virginal maidens as described in chivalric romances and rearranged the
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words ever so slightly, and this deviation provides for a humorous interpretation on the
part of the attentive readers.
On the whole, Cervantes’s narrator is capable of a broad range of humor,
embellishing his descriptions with hyperbole, imitating how other characters would
speak, or by allowing the readers to experience the course of events in the same way the
characters do, leaving the full explanation till after the surprise. Whereas Avellaneda’s
narrator is adept at base or crude humor, his art does not extend much beyond this narrow
field. It is also curious to note that Avellaneda’s narrator continually makes references to
how the other characters enjoy or even burst out laughing at Don Quixote, Sancho Panza,
or other circumstances throughout the novel, an artifice Cervantes’s narrator does not do
as frequently. It is as if Avellaneda’s narrator felt the need to continuously remind the
readers to laugh, much in the way canned laughter reminds a television audience.
In turning to the role of the historians in both novels, Avellaneda’s historian is
barely perceptible. Chapter 1 opens with “El sabio Alisolán, historiador no menos
moderno que verdadero, dice que, siendo expelidos los moros agarenos de Aragón, de
cuya nación él descendía, entre ciertos anales de historias halló escrita en arábigo la
tercera salida que hizo del lugar de Argamesilla el invicto hidalgo don Quijote de la
Mancha” (17). “El sabio Alisolán” are the first words of Avellaneda’s text, yet he is
never mentioned again. In fact, the word “historiador” is only mentioned five more times
in the novel, the first two of which refer to the impossibility of a historian being able to
retell a specific event: “. . . no habrá historiador, por diligente que sea, que baste a
contarlas cosas” (100) and “no hay historiador, por diligente que sea, que las baste a
escribir” (288). The third mention refers to Alisolán, but portrays him as incapable of
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recounting Don Quixote’s deeds: “no se atreve el historiador, por ser tan extraordinarias y
dignas de elegantísimas exageraciones, a referirlas las cosas que el triste Caballero
Desamorado hizo y dijo” (326). The last two times in the novel that a reference is made
to a historian, Don Quixote is referring to the author of a theater group whom he runs into
several times during his journeys, and whom he has confused with the magicians Alquife
and Fristón from chivalric romances. Perhaps Avellaneda began his novel in imitation of
Cervantes’s wonderfully complex model of Cide Hamete Benengeli, but either did not
understand or lost interest in the intricate literary device he was attempting to emulate.
Cervantes’s historian plays a great role in the narrative. Cide Hamete Benengeli is
very present in both of the 1605 and 1615 texts, and provides entertainment via his witty
comments. He appears forty-one times throughout both novels, and always by name. As
George Haley, in “The Narrator in Don Quijote,” summarizes, “He is part wizard because
of his omniscience, which does not keep him from using documentary sources; part
historian because of his devotion to the truth as he sees it, though he is a Moor and
therefore a liar by definition, according to the Christian second author; and he is part poet
because of his expressed concern with artistic selection, invention and adornment” (147).
He is first introduced in the text in Part I, chapter 9, when the narrator has accidentally
come across the continuation of Historia de don Quijote de la Mancha, escrita por Cide
Hamete Benengeli, historiador arábigo in the Alcaná, or marketplace, of Toledo (158).
Although he takes a background role to many of the other protagonists, because he is
mentioned in passing several times, the readers come to learn quite a bit about him, if
they pay attention. The narrator mentions that he is a historian who is “muy curioso y
muy puntual en todas las cosas” and that he knows and may even be related to the lusty
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muleteer from Arévalo staying at the inn (I: 16). He later refers to him as “Cide Hamete,
puntualísimo escudriñador de los átomos desta verdadera historia” (II: 50) and that he is
the “autor arábigo y manchego, en esta gravísima, altisonante, mínima, dulce e imaginada
historia” of Don Quixote (I: 22). This confusion between being a Spaniard and an Arab,
or later, a Christian and a Muslim, is also seen via his exclamations and thoughts
throughout the novel. Chaper 8 of Part II begins, “‘¡Bendito sea el poderoso Ala!,’ dice
Hamete Benengeli al comienzo deste octavo capítulo. ‘¡Bendito sea Alá!,’ repite tres
veces” (81). Because he has already been introduced in the text as a Moor, this type of
exclamation probably does not come as a surprise to the readers. What is surprising, and
daringly funny, is that he gets away with praising Allah four times, considering the
Catholic Inquisition was censuring literature. Later on, chapter 27 begins, “Entra Cide
Hamete, coronista desta grande hisotria, con estas palabras en este capítulo: ‘Juro como
católico cristiano . . .’; a lo que su traductor dice que el jurar Cide Hamete como católico
cristiano siendo él moro, como sin duda lo era, no quiso decir otra cosa sino que así como
el católico cristiano cuando jura, jura, o debe jurar, verdad, y decirla en lo que dijere, así
él la decía, como si jurara como cristiano católico” (234). Cervantes’s narrator is having
fun with the concept of swearing, and whether one can swear like a Catholic, being a
Muslim. It is comments such as these that cause Anthony Close, in “Cervantes's
Aesthetics,” to regard Cide Hamete as “preposterously contradictory” (104) and
mendacious (105). Whereas Close is more concerned with the concept of history and
veracity, it is important to understand the significance this historian holds as a literary
device utilized to add another layer of humor to the narrative. James Parr, in Don
Quixote: An Anatomy of Subversive Discourse, refers to Cide Hamete Benengeli as a
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“narrative presence,” who only actually appears in the text as a character at the very end
of Part II, when he talks to his pen (31). While he may not appear throughout the rest of
the storyline as a character, his voice is nevertheless present via translation, surfacing
from time to time with witty commentary and thereby adding an additional level of
humor to the text. Take the example found in Part II, chapter 48, when Doña Rodriguez
has arrived at Don Quixote’s room in the middle of the night to ask him advice. After
they scare each other and the confusion of why she is there is clarified, he invites her in
to talk. At this point, the narrator interrupts the text with, “Aquí hace Cide Hamete un
paréntesis, y dice que por Mahoma que diera, por ver ir a los dos así asidos y trabados
desde la puerta al lecho, la mejor almalafa de dos que tenía” (384). Through the voice of
the narrator, Cide Hamete’s commentary draws attention to the ridiculousness of the
scene: it is midnight and they walk by the light of the candle into his room, she fully
cloaked in a long white-bordered veil and he wrapped in a yellow satin coverlet with a
nightcap on his head. Regardless of whether his comments are sage observations or funny
interjections, Cide Hamete Benengeli’s interruptions add a tone of levity because they
break up the text and underline incongruities and potentially comic situations in the
narrative.
The most obvious elements of humor within the narratives are the two
protagonists. Beginning with the two Don Quixotes, both resemble each other physically
and share the same last name, but outside of this they are completely different characters.
Don Álvaro, the Morisco nobleman from Granada who befriends Don Quixote in
Avellaneda’s novel, makes an appearance in Cervantes’s second part. When asked what
the two Don Quixotes have in common, he remarks that both they, along with the two
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Sanchos, are “tan conformes en los nombres como diferentes en las acciones” (563). The
apocryphal Don Quixote, or Martín Quijada as Avellaneda calls him, is for many critics
an imposter. But in order to be an imposter, one must be attempting to emulate an
original, and at no time in Avellaneda’s text does Don Quixote say that he is the same
knight errant as the one in the first part. It is Avellaneda’s narrator who, in the first line of
the novel, proclaims that this is the “la tercera salida que hizo del lugar del Argamesilla el
invicto hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha” (17), which could allow for the
misinterpretation that this Don Quixote is attempting to be exactly like the first one.
However, in his prologue, the fictionalized author states, “En algo diferencia esta parte de
la primera suya, porque tengo opuesto humor también al suyo; y en materia de opiniones
en cosas de historia, y tan auténtica como ésta, cada cual puede echar por donde le
pareciere” (11). Avellaneda’s differing or different sense of humor should also be
understood to include his portrayal of Don Quixote. I do not believe he intended to
imitate faithfully Cervantes’s creations; rather, he takes Don Quixote’s and Sancho’s
more salient traits in Part I and exaggerates them in his version. As a result, and
following Aylward’s observation mentioned above, Avellaneda’s Don Quixote never
grows beyond the boundaries of the caricature of a madman. If he is to be compared to
the original Quixote, it should be in the same way that the Don Quixote from Man of la
Mancha is judged against Cervantes’s. He is not an imposter so much as an adaptation,
remolded to suit Avellaneda’s purpose. Cervantes’s Don Quixote is only partially correct
when he complains that Avellaneda’s creation is a “desventurado que ha querido usurpar
mi nombre y honrarse con mis pensamientos” (563). Yes, he is given the same name, but
the readers never see him attempt to credit himself with the original Don Quixote’s
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thoughts and ideas; he is not capable of doing so. Judging from his actions and what he
says, with the exception of his name, the apocryphal Don Quixote cannot be seriously
considered an imposter. For this very reason, both characters’ comic value should be
appreciated for what each represents and not only in comparison to each other.
Returning to the passage mentioned above, where the apocryphal Don Quixote is
caught with his pants down by Sancho and a page while fantasizing about the jousts in
Zaragoza, the readers are presented with a different type of madness than that exuded by
Cervantes’s character. This newer Don Quixote is constantly afflicted with immobilizing
delusions of grandeur, where he sees himself conquering adversary after adversary, or
with violent, highly incensed outbursts and rash actions. These fits of mania, in addition
to occurring more often in the apocryphal version, last for a long time. Although
Cervantes’s Don Quixote can haul off and clobber another character, such as Sancho (I:
30),13 in reaction to what he has understood to be an insult or affront, his outbursts are not
prolonged and he does not lash out at random. The readers never see him gaze off and
lose touch with his surroundings, which is what happens to the apocryphal knight.
Avellaneda’s Don Quixote also admits to sometimes faking acts of furious
bravery or heroism, which come across as madness to the readers because they are not
aware of what is really going on. Pretending to be mad is something that the original one
only does once, but in an entirely different situation. At the beginning of the apocryphal
text, Don Quixote is no longer permitted to read chivalric romances and instead takes up
reading religious texts such as Pedro de Ribadeneira’s Flos Sanctorum, but in chapter 3
13
“Don Quijote, que tales blasfemias oyó decir contra su señora Dulcinea, no lo pudo sufrir, y, alzando el
lanzón, sin hablalle palabra a Sancho y sin decirle esta boca es mía, le dio tales dos palos que dio con él en
tierra” (373).
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Sancho brings him a copy of Florisbán de Candaria.14 Taking it from Sancho, he then
proceeds to tell him, becoming more worked up with each sentence, how he plans to
attend the jousts in Zaragoza and befriend the nobility. He then opens the trunk of armor
Don Álvaro has left behind and, as he begins to put on the different pieces, his mood
begins to change and he angrily approaches Sancho:
—Espera, dragón maldito, sierpe de Libia, basilisco infernal: verás por
experiencia el valor de don Quijote, segundo san Jorge en fortaleza; verás, digo, si
de un golpe sólo puedo partir no solamente a ti, sino a los diez más fieros gigantes
que la nación gigántea jamás produjo.
Sancho, que le vio venir para sí tan desaforado, comenzó a correr por el aposento;
y metiéndose detrás de la cama, andaba al derredor della huyendo de la furia de su
amo, el cual decía, dando muchas cuchilladas a tuertas y derechas por el aposento,
cortando muchas veces las cortinas, mantas y almohadas de la cama:
—Espera, jayán soberbio, que ya ha llegado la hora en que quiere la Majestad
divina que pagues las malas obras que has hecho en el mundo.
Andaba en esto tras el pobre Sancho al derredor de la cama, diciéndole mil
palabras injuriosas, y juntamente con cada una arrojándole una estocada o
cuchillada larga, que si la cama no fuera tan ancha como era, lo pasara el pobre
Sancho harto mal. El cual le dijo:
—Señor don Quijote, por todas cuantas llagas tuvieron Job, el señor San Lázaro,
el señor San Francisco, y lo que más es, nuestro Señor Jesucristo, y por aquellas
benditas saetas que sus padres tiraron al señor San Sebastián, que tenga
compasión, piedad, lástima y misericordia de mi ánima pecadora.
Embravecíase más con todo esto don Quijote, diciendo:
—¡Oh, soberbio! ¿Agora piensas con tus blandas palabras y ruegos aplacar la
justa ira que contigo tengo? Vuelve, vuelve las princesas y caballeros que contra
ley y razón en este tu castillo tienes; vuelve los grandes tesoros que tienes
usurpados, las doncellas que tienes encantadas, y la maga encantadora, causadora
de todos estos males.
—Señor, ¡pecador de mí! —decía Sancho Panza—, que no soy princesa ni
caballero, ni esa señora maga que dice, sino el negro de Sancho Panza, su vecino
y antiguo escudero, marido de la buena Mari-Gutiérrez, que ya vuesa merced
tiene media viuda. (46-47)
14
The full title of this anonymous chivalric romance, printed by Pedro Castro en Medina del Campo in
1542, is Libro primero del muy noble y esforzado caballero don Philesbián de Candaria, hijo del noble rey
don Felinis de Ungría y de la Reyna Florisena.
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In the end, in order to get his master to desist and calm down, Sancho has to pretend to be
this adversary that Don Quixote sees. He admits defeat and promises to release to him
everyone he supposedly holds captive. The readers think it is Sancho’s verbal surrender
that has conquered his master’s violent delirium, but on the next page, after Don Quixote
has Sancho swear to aid the poor and needy and undo “los tuertos y agravios,” Sancho
responds,
—Yo lo juro y prometo . . . de her todo eso que me dice; pero dígame, en lo de
deshacer esos tuertos, ¿ha de entrar también el licenciado Pedro García,
beneficiado del Toboso, que es tuerto de un ojo? Porque no me quisiera meter en
cosas de nuestra santa madre la Iglesia.
Levantó entonces don Quijote a Sancho diciendo:
—¿Qué te parece, amigo Sancho? Quien hace esto en un aposento cerrado con un
hombre solo como tú, mejor lo hiciera en una campaña con un ejército de
hombres . . . ¿No ves, Sancho, que era fingido, no más de por darte a entender mi
grande esfuerzo en el combatir, destreza en el derribar y maña en el acometer?
(48)
This is one of the few times Avellaneda’s narrator surprises the readers by not letting us
know earlier on that Don Quixote is faking this insane fit. This theatrical humor, with one
character chasing the other around the room, is based on physical actions, although
Sancho’s short interjections break up the seriousness of the attack and therefore help in
creating laughter.
Cervantes’s Don Quixote also admits to imitating the actions of a madman, but it
is a different circumstance and for a different reason. In chapter 25 of the first part, when
he is in the Sierra Morena with Sancho, Don Quixote explains to him,
Tengo de hacer en estas partes una hazaña, con que he de ganar perpetuo nombre
y fama en todo lo descubierto de la tierra; y será tal, que he de echar con ella el
sello a todo aquello que puede hacer perfecto y famoso a un andante caballero. . . .
quiero imitar a Amadís, haciendo aquí el desesperado, del sandio y del furioso,
por imitar juntamente al valiente don Roldán. (302-04)
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Different from Avellaneda’s Don Quixote, who feels the need to act out the violence in
order to be convincing in his mad show of courage, Cervantes’s character explains where
he is coming from, why he has undertaken this task, and how he will imitate Amadís de
Gaula and Roldán. The humor here lies in the irrationality of Don Quixote’s plan,
something that Sancho is quick to point out. But as his master further explains, “volverse
loco un caballero andante con causa, ni grado ni gracias: el toque está desatinar sin
ocasión y dar a entender a mi dama que, si en seco hago esto, ¿qué hiciera en mojado?”
(304). He is willing to imitate a madman to prove his devotion to Dulcinea. He even goes
so far as to demonstrate this insanity to Sancho, through a half-naked handstand, which is
what he believes to be the actions of a crazy person. There is humor in this episode, due
to the initial absurdity of Don Quixote’s idea as well as to his interpretive demonstration
of insanity, but because he explains beforehand what he plans to do and why, this takes
away from the element of surprise. He is also less destructive in feigning madness than
the other Quixote.
Where the readers do see him acting out in violence and do not understand
initially what is happening is when Don Quixote attacks the wineskins (I: 35). In his
sleep, the knight has began to slash at the wineskins in his room at the inn, dreaming that
they are his adversaries. Even Sancho believes he is fighting Pandafilando de la Fosca
Vista, the enemy giant of the Princess Micomicona, because he exclaims to the other that
his master “anda envuelto en la más reñida y trabada batalla que mis ojos han visto. ¡Vive
Dios, que ha dado una cuchillada al gigante enemigo de la señora princesa Micomicona,
que le ha tajado la cabeza cercen a cercen, como si fuera un nabo!” (429). In this passage,
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Don Quixote says very little and it is the narrator who explains how he is dressed and
what exactly has happened:
Estaba en camisa, la cual no era tan cumplida, que por delante le acabase de
cubrir los muslos, y por detrás tenía seis dedos menos; las piernas eran muy largas
y flacas, llenas de vello y no nada limpias; tenía en la cabeza un bonetillo
colorado, grasiento, que era del ventero. En el brazo izquierdo tenía revuelta la
manta de la cama, con quien tenía ojeriza Sancho, y él se sabía bien el porqué; y
en la derecha, desenvainada la espada, con la cual daba cuchilladas a todas partes,
diciendo palabras como si verdaderamente estuviera peleando con algún gigante:
que fue tan intensa la imaginación de la aventura que iba a fenecer, que le hizo
soñar que ya había llegado al reino de Micomicón, y que ya estaba en la pelea con
su enemigo. Y había dado tantas cuchilladas en los cueros, creyendo que las daba
en el gigante, que todo el aposento estaba lleno de vino. (430)
The element of confusion adds to the ridiculousness of this scene, where a hairy-legged,
dirty, somnambulant Don Quixote is destroying wineskins and his squire is shouting that
he has seen him behead the giant. The innkeeper, upset over the lost wine, begins to
pummel the still-sleeping knight, so that he is now doing battle with an opponent,
although it is not with the giant. In the end, Don Quixote believes he has vanquished
Pandafilando and is put back to bed. It is Sancho who continues to believe that he has
seen his master win a battle, and that therefore he has gained a county, even after the
others have explained the reality of the scene. The narrator relates that, in talking
afterwards with Dorotea (Princess Micomicona), Sancho “aseguró a la princesa que
tuviese por cierto que él había visto la cabeza del gigante, y que, por más señas, tenía una
barba que le llegaba a la cintura, y que si no parecía, era porque todo cuanto en aquella
casa pasaba era por vía de encantamiento” (433). Sancho suffers from the same type of
vision as his master, incapable of seeing what the others have seen and pointed out.
Instead he believes, as would his master, that the differences in opinion are due to
enchantments.
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This scene in some ways is reminiscent of the episode in The Golden Ass when
Lucius is the butt of a joke during a town’s celebration of the Festival of Laughter.
Lucius had returned to the place where he was staying late one night only to be attacked
by two would-be muggers. He defends himself and then goes inside to bed. When he
awakes, he is arrested for killing these two men, found dead outside his front door. He is
lead to the center of town, where everyone has gathered. They boo and jeer at him while
he begs for mercy, and in the end he is condemned to death. As he goes to leave the
platform, the sheet is pulled off of the two dead corpses, only to reveal slashed wineskins.
When the townspeople see Lucius’s shock, they burst into laughter, something that the
confused Lucius does not reciprocate. They explain to him that this is part of the festival
for their worship of the god of Laughter.
In juxtaposing these three similar scenes, we see various types of humor
surfacing. In The Golden Ass, the narrator pulls the readers along with Lucius, keeping
everyone in suspense. Because the readers experience everything from Lucius’s point of
view, the surprise that comes with the discovery of the wineskins allows for a release of
tension and therefore laughter on the part of the readers, who do not have to suffer
through Lucius’s humiliation. This is humor at Lucius’s expense. In the episode from
Avellaneda in which Don Quixote appears violently mad while putting on a performance
of aggressive valor for his squire, the readers are unaware that Don Quixote is staging
this absurd bravado while he chases Sancho around the room. The laughter initially stems
from the image of a fearful Sancho ducking and hiding from his delirious master, all the
while pleading with him. It is a more physical, slapstick-type humor. When Don Quixote
announces, a page later, that he has been faking it, the laughter comes from Sancho’s
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understandable anger coupled with the ridiculousness of the knight’s destructive
rampage. He has destroyed his curtains and bed to prove to Sancho his passionate
dedication to carrying out his mission. Cervantes’s version showcases the ludicrousness
of both Don Quixote and Sancho. It is one of only two occasions in the novel in which
the knight experiences somnambulism.15 He dreams he is fighting Pandafilando, and
therefore he is blindly slashing around the room, acting out his dream. His actions are
similar to those of the apocryphal Don Quixote, but here the humor is less aggressive
because he is only accidentally attacking wineskins. Since the readers understand what
Don Quixote is envisioning plus they know what is really taking place, they can also
laugh at Sancho, who believes he has seen giants and cannot understand any explanation
to the contrary. This is also a unique situation, because it is Sancho who is convinced of
his vision, when he is normally the one who attempts to argue with Don Quixote
otherwise. Both he and his master share this fantasy but, where Don Quixote is returned
to his bed never the wiser about the wineskins, it is Sancho who must face the truth of the
situation and who adopts his master’s ideas of enchantment to explain the incongruities.
All three scenes center around the chimera of vision, and all three create different types
of laughter, based mainly on the discrepancy between what is imagined and what actually
takes place.
The manner in which both Quixotes are depicted in these scenes also serves as a
fairly accurate representation of how they act throughout their respective novels.
Cervantes’s Don Quixote interprets ambiguous signs such as dust clouds or loud,
thumping noises, through a mental filter built on formulas from chivalric romances. This
15
The first time occurs in Part I, chapter 7, after his initial sally. Here, however, he is barely up before the
curate and barber forcibly return him to his bed.
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allows him to interpret marching armies or other fantastic adventures. Humor is created
because what he envisions is contrasted with what is really there, and the incongruity
produced through this contrast makes his actions laughable. The apocryphal knight,
embodying the reactionary aggressiveness and dangerous madness of the original Don
Quixote, along with bouts of paralyzing delirium, is a one-sided lunatic who in general
does not demonstrate the signs of intelligence nor perception that the other does.
Aylward, in describing the redeeming qualities of Avellaneda’s protagonist, comments
that he finds him more gentle and caring: “Don Quixote’s tender and generous response
to the tears he sees on Barbara’s scarred cheek—even if he doesn’t quite understand why
she is crying—shows a compassionate and charitable side of his personality that
Cervantes himself somehow neglected to portray” (50). But this tenderness is much
scarcer in the apocryphal version than the compassion the original knight errant
frequently shows Sancho. Avellaneda has infused his character with some of the
ingredients of the original Don Quixote, and although there are a few instances in the
novel where this tender side surfaces, because Avellaneda mostly uses his protagonist to
create raucous scenes of physical humor, this author does not attain the depth in character
profile that his contemporary does. His Don Quixote is a funny character, but on a
narrower scale: his mad fantasizing, violent outbursts, and otherwise outlandish behavior
are predictable and are therefore capable of charging a scene with humor because the
readers can anticipate to a certain degree what will happen. This knight also creates
laughter through his manner of speaking, overly exaggerating the original Don Quixote’s
habit of emulating how knights errant in chivalric romances speak. In chapter 24, for
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example, his word choices are excessively archaic and pass into the realm of ridiculous.
He is speaking to a crowd gathered in a plaza, but he thinks they are all princes:
—¡Oh, vosotros, infanzones, que fincastes de las lides, que no fincárades ende!
¿Non sabedes por ventura que Muza y don Julián, maguer que el uno moro y el
otro a mi real corona aleve, las tierras talan por mi luengo tiempo poseídas, y que
fincar además piensan en ellas? Tan cuellierguidos están con las victorias que
asaz contra razón han ganado, fugiendo nosotros de sus airadas faces, non
faciendo la resistencia que a tales infanzones y hombres buenos atañen, non
considerando las cuitas de nuestras fembras, ni los muchos desaguisados y fuerzas
que aquestos malandantes, con infinitos tuertos, cuidan facer en pro de Mahoma y
en reproche de nuestra fe, fablando cosas non decideras, llenas de mil sandeces.
(290)
Avellaneda has augmented the original Don Quixote’s habit of incorporating archaic
vocabulary into his orations. Here almost every word the apocryphal knight uses is a
grotesque exaggeration of this old-fashioned form of speech, rendering him completely
laughable as well as practically unintelligible. Avellaneda’s Don Quixote is nothing short
of absurd and the laughter he creates when he speaks is the same as that of a court jester.
He appeals to the readers who find pompous buffoons amusing.
In Cervantes’s novel, the role of clown is mostly reserved for Sancho, whose
jumbled slogans and incessant chatter provide humorous accompaniment to his master’s
interpretive fantasies. His use of proverbs or sayings, strung one after the other and often
times without
rhyme nor reason, add levity to the narrative. One example of this takes place in chapter
25 of the first part, when Don Quixote is explaining to him that Madásima and Elisabat,
two characters from Amadís de Gaula, were not romantically involved and that anyone
who thought differently would be lying. Sancho replies,
—Ni yo lo digo ni lo pienso—respondió Sancho—; allá se lo hayan; con su pan se
lo coman. Si fueron amancebados o no, a Dios habrán dado la cuenta. De mis
viñas vengo, no sé nada; no soy amigo de saber vidas ajenas; que el que compra y
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miente, en su bolsa lo siente. Cuanto más, que desnudo nací, desnudo me hallo: ni
pierdo ni gano; mas que lo fuesen, ¿qué me va a mí? Y muchos piensan que hay
tocinos y no hay estancas. Mas ¿quién puede poner puertas al campo? Cuanto
más, que de Dios dijeron. (302)
Sancho is comical here because he has said more than was necessary and has botched the
saying donde se cree que hay tocinos, no hay estacas, affects that make him sound silly
plus exacerbate Don Quixote. His remarks often break up a more serious or informational
conversation, such as in the case above. As a result, he inadvertently adds levity if not
laughter via his rustic expressions, and mispronounced proverbs or words.
Sancho’s rusticity helps to make him a comical character. Cervantes initially casts
him in the role of a poor, clumsy, and uncouth villager. He depicts Sancho as short and
fat, and his wife Teresa refers to him as a “pastor de cabras” (II: 52), while the narrator
describes him as “un labrador vecino de Don Quixote . . . de muy poca sal en la mollera”
(I: 7). According to Mauricio Molho, in Raíces folklóricas, Sancho initially fits the role
of the folkloric simpleton: “El bobo es un ser de un primitivismo extremo. Su simpleza e
ingenuidad son infantiles, y no sólo le inducen a cometer toda clase de torpezas, sino que
provocan la agresividad burlona de los circunstantes” (236). He also displays
characteristics of the theatrical gracioso. Joseph Silverman, in “El gracioso de Juan Ruiz
de Alarcón y el concepto de la figura del donaire tradicional,” defines this character type
as a “cobarde, impertinente, fiel, representante del sentido común, consejero de su amo”
(64). Cervantes’s Sancho is a combination of both the simple peasant and the gracioso,
affecting a wider, more versatile personality. Depending on the episode, he is gullible,
rough mannered, cowardly, shrewd, witty, or logical. His personality contrasts with the
lofty idealism of Don Quixote and the resulting combination produces humor more often
than not.
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As Cervantes’s novel develops, Sancho-as-simpleton is still visible, but he often
goes beyond this initial, restrictive role and exudes a keener wit than what is expected of
him. This does not mean that the other characters stop playing him for the fool they think
he is. But it is a subtle irony that arises, for example, in his governing of Barataria, when
he judges cases with a Solomon-like rational. The joke is on the other characters who had
expected to see a fool in action and come away surprised by his shrewd decisions. It is
this practical side of Sancho that some critics regard as inconsistencies on the part of his
character and that we do not see in Avellaneda’s version. Even the translator, in Part II,
chapter 5, believes that this particular section of the text must be apocryphal because
Sancho has stepped beyond his mold of simpleton and speaks with a finesse unexpected
of him. Molho explains, “Ahí está precisamente la diferencia entre Sancho Panza y los
bobos sus congéneres. Un bobo se caracteriza por su credulidad radical, absoluta, infinita.
Sancho, en cambio, se rige por un principio contradictorio y reversible de credulidad +
incredulidad, operante en todo el Quijote” (238). Cervantes continually plays with the
readers’ response to his rural squire who develops beyond the confines of the simpleton
role. Sancho is often chastised or singled out by the translator, his wife, Don Quixote, and
other characters, whenever he acts or speaks differently than would a stereotypical
peasant. By overlapping the traditional peasant role and that of the gracioso, Cervantes
imbues Sancho with a broader range of characteristics and he therefore becomes a more
multifaceted figure. In Part II, chapter 49, when Sancho and Don Quixote are first
introduced to the apocryphal version, Don Jerónimo tells Sancho, “. . . no os trata este
autor moderno con la limpieza que en vuestra persona se muestra: píntaos comedor, y
simple, y no nada gracioso, y muy otro del Sancho que en la primera parte de la historia
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de vuestro amo se describe” (474). Cervantes is underlying the difference between his
creation and what he understands to be Avellaneda’s. Cervantes has fashioned a character
who develops beyond the limits of his stereotypes or caricatures, and this in turn
challenges the receptivity of the other characters and readers, who expect only to
encounter a simple minded, clumsy laborer at whom they can laugh.
This preliminary version of Sancho Panza is what Avellaneda takes from
Cervantes and then exaggerates to the point of grotesqueness for a purely comic effect.
He does not seem interested in delving into the complexities of rendering a character as
life-like as Cervantes does, but rather prefers to exploit the caricature of the rustic
peasant/court buffoon. Aylward observes, “The matter of gluttony aside, Sancho’s
character in the 1614 sequel is really no more offensive than the typical gracioso of the
Spanish Golden Age comedia. If Avellaneda can be said to create here a gross
oversimplification/stereotype of the stock dim-witted peasant character, he has done no
more than elaborate upon the personality created by Cervantes in the early adventures of
the original Don Quixote” (34). As Silverman has pointed out above, however, the
gracioso is generally impertinent and cowardly, as well as loyal and steeped in common
sense. Avellaneda’s Sancho embodies only the first two characteristics and lacks
common sense. His loyalty to Don Quixote is also very questionable. At the end of
Avellaneda’s novel, Sancho leaves Don Quixote to live with the Gran Archipámpano as
his page in Madrid. The Archipámpano asks him how Don Quixote will react to his
farewell, to which Sancho replies,
—No tenga vuesa merced miedo . . . que yo le hablaré claro antes que vaya a
Toledo, y le volveré su rucio, . . . Y más, que le diré se vaya con Dios, pues desde
aquí al día del juicio reniego de las peleas, sin querer más cosa con ellas; . . . Y,
aunque él me quiere tanto, que entiendo me dará lo que me tiene prometido, que
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es la gobernación de algún reino, provincia, ínsula o península, todavía diré
mañana cómo no puedo ir allá con él, por estar ya concertado con vuesa merced, y
que lo que podrá hacer será enviármela, que tan hombre seré para gobernarla acá
como allá. (434-35)
Sancho’s stupidity here is eclipsed by his lack of loyalty to his master. He has found a
better offer and is taking it. In the end, because the others have taken the knight to the
mental hospital in Toledo, Sancho and Don Quixote do not even have the opportunity to
say goodbye. Sancho’s unfaithfulness underlines the main differences between this
character and that of Cervantes.
Much in the same way Avellaneda took what he wanted from the original Quixote
and fashioned his own knight, Avellaneda has a different vision of Sancho. The clumsy,
loyal, uneducated original who has a fondness for eating becomes an ignorant,
disrespectful, gluttonous clown in the apocryphal version. In chapter 12, Sancho has
joined Don Carlos and Don Álvaro in an inn where they are dining. They introduce him
to meatballs and his reaction is bizarre:
—¡Oh hi de puta, traidores, y que bien me han sabido! Pardiez que pueden ser
pelotillas con que jueguen los niños en limbo. A fe que si torno a mi lugar, que en
un huerto que tengo junto a mi casa he de sembrar por lo menos un celemín
dellas, porque sé que no se siembran en todo el Argamasilla; y aun podrá ser, si el
año se acierta, que los regidores me las pongan a ocho maravedís la libra; y si es
así, no serán oídas ni vistas.
Decía esto Sancho tan sencillamente, como si en realidad de verdad fuera
cosa que se pudiera sembrar. Y viendo que todos se reían, dijo:
—Sólo un desconveniente hallo yo en sembrar éstas, y es que como soy de mi
naturaleza aficionado a ellas, me las comería antes que llegasen a madurar, si no
es que mi mujer me pusiese algún espantajo para que no llegase a ellas, y aun
Dios y ayuda que bastase. (138)
Avellaneda has fashioned a very different creature out of Cervantes’s original mold. He
has not taken and faithfully reproduced the early Sancho found in the initial chapters of
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the 1605 version, but has dumbed him down and made him ruder. Throughout the novel,
this Sancho continually swears, eats anything he can get his hands on, and completely
lacks any understanding of social hierarchy, insulting and even attacking mayors,
noblemen, and other social superiors such as the Gran Archipámpano of Sevilla.
Sancho’s rudeness combined with his lack of common sense creates laughter, but it is
completely derogatory. He is, in effect, a traveling buffoon, who unwittingly provides
fodder for the spectators’ laughter via his outrageously brash mannerisms. In chapter 35,
after he has accepted the Archipámpano’s offer to work for him in Madrid, Sancho
dictates a letter to his wife. He is dictating it to Don Carlos, a nobleman, and they are in
front of a large group of people, including the Archipámpano and his wife. Sancho allows
himself to be the laughing stock of the room. He begins,
—Escribamos por cierto . . . con la bendición de Dios. Pero vuesa merced advierta
que ella es un poco sorda y será menester que la escribamos un poco recio para
que la oiga. Haga la cruz y diga: “Carta para Mari-Gutiérrez, mi mujer, en el
Argamesilla de la Mancha, junto a Toboso.” Ahora bien, dígale que con esto ceso,
y no de rogar por su ánima.
—¡Qué es lo que decís, Sancho! —le dijo don Carlos—Aún no le habemos dicho
cosa, ¡y ya decís: “con esto ceso”!
—Calle—respondió él—; que no lo entiende. ¿Quiere saber mejor que yo lo que
tengo de decir? El diablo me lleve si no me ha hecho quebrar el hilo que llevaba,
con la más linda astrología que se podía pensar. Pero diga que ya me acuerdo.
“Habéis de saber que desde que yo salí del Argamesilla hasta agora, no nos hemos
visto; mi salud dicen todos que es muy buena; sólo me duelen los ojos de puro ver
cosas del otro mundo, plegue a Dios que tal sea de los vuestros. Avisadme de
cómo os va del beber y si hay harto vino en la Mancha para remediaros la sed que
mi presencia os causa, y mirad, por vida vuestra, escardéis bien el huertecillo de
las malas hierbas que le suelen afligir. Enviadme los zaragüelles viejos de paño
pardo que están sobre el gallinero, porque acá me ha dado el Arcapámpanos unos
zaragüelles de las Indias, que no me puedo remecer con ellos: guardarlos he para
vos, que quizás se os asentarán mejor, más que sin mucho trabajo traeréis
guardado el hornillo de vidrio, pues tienen por delante una puerta que se cierra y
abre con una sola agujeta. Si queréis venir, ya os tengo dicho lo que nos dará el
Arcapámpanos cada mes de salario; y así, os mando que antes que esta carta salga
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de aquí, os vengáis a servir a la Arcapampanesa, trayendo todos los bienes
muebles y raíces con vos; que ahí están, sin dejar un palmo de tierra ni una sola
hoja del huerto. Y no me seáis repostona, que me canso ya de vuestras
impertinencias, y tanto será lo de más como lo de menos; y no os haya de decir,
como acostumbro, con el palo en la mano: ‘jo, que te estriego, burra de mi
suegro.’. . . Ya os digo, Mari-Gutiérrez, que estaremos aquí lindamente; que
aunque vos seáis enemiga de estar en casa destos hidalgotes, todavía el
Arcapámpanos está tan hombre de bien, que me ha jurado que, en estando vos
aquí, nos vestirá a ambos y nos dará el salario de dos años adelantado, que es un
ducado por bestia cada mes: el uno a mí y el otro a vos. Mirad, pues, si por lo
menos vivimos mil meses, si tendremos harto dinero. Del señor don Quijote sólo
os digo que está más valiente que nunca y le han hecho nuncio de Toledo; . . . La
Arcampanesa, vuestra ama, con quien habéis de estar, os besa las manos y tiene
más deseo de escribiros que de veros. Es mujer muy honrada, según dice su
marido, si bien a mí no me lo parece, por lo que la veo holgazana, pues desde que
estoy aquí, jamás le he visto la rueca en la cinta. Rocinante me dicen está bueno y
que se ha vuelto muy persona y cortesano; no creo lo sea tanto el rucio, o a lo
menos, no lo muestran su pocas razones, si ya no es que calla, enfadado de estar
tanto tiempo en la corte. (433-34)
Sancho is rude and ignorant. He orders Don Carlos to be quiet, describes the
Archipampanesa as lazy and not very honorable, and cannot even say her and her
husband’s names correctly. Sancho also lacks common sense, telling Don Carlos to write
loudly since his wife is hard of hearing. He tells Teresa that she had better be in Madrid
before this letter leaves his hands, and tells her that she should bring everything with her,
including the soil and every last leaf from the garden. This ridiculousness, coupled with
the boorish lack of respect he demonstrates, allows only for a laughter that derides and
debases. It is burlesque humor based on the stereotypical mannerisms of the rustic
peasant and reveals Sancho at his most unintelligent and disloyal.
The original Sancho also writes his wife a letter, right before leaving for his
governorship, but it is humorous in a different way. In Part II, chapter 36, Sancho has
asked the Duchess to read his letter, to make sure it sounds the way a governor’s letter
should, showing his concern for posterity. The letter reads,
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Si buenos azotes me daban, bien caballero me iba; si buen gobierno me tengo,
buenos azotes me cuesta. Esto no lo entenderás tú, Teresa mía, por ahora; otra vez
lo sabrás. Has de saber, Teresa, que tengo determinado que andes en coche, que es
lo que hace al caso, porque todo otro andar es andar a gatas. Mujer de un
gobernador eres; ¡mira si te roerá nadie los zancajos! Ahí te envío un vestido
verde de cazador, que me dio mi señora la duquesa; acomódale en modo que sirva
de saya y cuerpos a nuestra hija. Don Quijote, mi amo, según he oído decir en esta
tierra, es un loco cuerdo y un mentecato gracioso, y que yo no le voy en la zaga.
Hemos estado en la cueva de Montesinos, y el sabio Merlín ha echado mano de
mí para el desencanto de Dulcinea del Toboso, que por allá se llama Aldonza
Lorenzo; con tres mil trescientos azotes, menos cinco, que me he de dar, quedará
desencantada como la madre que la parió. . . . De aquí a pocos días me partiré al
gobierno, adonde voy con grandísimo deseo de hacer dineros . . .; tomaréle el
pulso, y avisaréte si has de venir a estar conmigo, o no. El rucio está bueno, y se
te encomienda mucho, y no le pienso dejar, aunque me llevaran a ser Gran Turco.
La duquesa mi señora te besa mil veces las manos: vuélvele el retorno con dos
mil, que no hay cosa que menos cueste ni valga más barata, según dice mi amo,
que los buenos comedimientos. No ha sido Dios servido de depararme otra maleta
con otros cien escudos . . . ; pero no te dé pena, Teresa mía, que en salvo está el
que repica, y todo saldrá en la colada del gobierno; sino que ha dado gran pena
que me dicen que si una vez le pruebo, que me tengo de comer las manos tras él, y
si así fuese, no me costaría muy barato, aunque los estropeados y mancos ya se
tienen su calonjía en la limosna que piden; así que, por una vía o por otra, tú has
de ser rica y de buena ventura. Dios te la dé, como puede, y a mí me guarde para
servirte. Deste castillo, a veinte de julio 1614. (303-304)
It is a much gentler letter than that of Avellaneda’s text, and the humor is more subtle.
Sancho begins, as could be expected, with a variation on a popular saying, only here he
does not jumble it but rather modifies it as a reference to his promise to disenchant
Dulcinea in exchange for the governorship. Curiously, Sancho ends his letter with the
date of July 20, 1614, which was more or less when Avellaneda published his version.
Whether this was intentional or not on Cervantes’s part, due to several other similarities
between the two letters, it is possible to speculate that Cervantes, or his narrator, is in
some way responding to the apocryphal letter and to his adversary’s crasser squire. The
original Sancho includes a green dress with his letter, something more appropriate for a
woman than the undergarment that the other Sancho does not want and plans to give to
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his wife. This Sancho is also much more tender, calling her “Teresa mía” instead of
threatening to beat her if she does not listen. He also mentions that his master is viewed
in those parts as a cuerdo loco and a funny madman, and that he himself was not far
behind him. This comment reflects his awareness of public opinion, something he neither
refutes nor confirms. Perhaps this is Cervantes’s attempt to differentiate his characters
from Avellaneda’s, where the two protagonists are only regarded as a mentecapto and a
gracioso. Here, however, Sancho shows circumspection, as when he tells Teresa not to
join him until he has fully investigated this new opportunity, as well as folly, because he
proceeds to tell her matter-of-factly about Merlin and how Dulcinea/Aldonza Lorenzo
will become as disenchanted as the mother that bore her. His letter is funny, but it is of a
completely different tone and humor.
Although the two Sanchos are mostly divergent characters, there are several
features or characteristics that they have in common. They both share a strong kinship
with their donkeys, for example. Cervantes’s Sancho weeps in Part I, chapter 25, when he
discovers his Dapple has been stolen. Upon finding his beast, Sancho talks to it,
exclaiming, “¿Cómo has estado, bien mío, rucio de mis ojos, compañero mío?,” bathing
him in kisses (376). When he and his master reach the Duke and Duchess’s palace in
chapter 31 of the second part, Sancho goes out of his way to tell the Duchess’s lady-inwaiting, Doña Rodríguez, to make sure she takes good care of his donkey, because he had
understood that in books of chivalry it is the ladies-in-waiting who look after the knight’s
mount. This provokes a hilarious dialogue between the two of them, where he defends his
request stating, “es tan grande el cariño que tengo a mi jumento” (260). In the letter
mentioned above, Sancho goes so far as to declare his refusal to exchange him for
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anything better “aunque me llevaran a ser el Gran Turco” (304). Sancho’s affection for
his donkey reflects loyalty and adds a softness to his rusticity, all the while providing
fodder for comic situations.
Throughout the major part of the novel, Avellaneda’s Sancho is even more
expressive about his love for his animal. In chapter 6, when Sancho discovers that Dapple
is nowhere to be found, he cries,
—¡Ay asno de mi ánima! ¿Y qué pecados has hecho para que te hayan llevado de
delante de mis ojos? Tú eres la lumbre dellos, ¡asno de mis entrañas, espejo en
que yo me miraba! ¿Quién te me ha llevado? ¡Ay jumento mío, que por ti solo y
por tu pico podías ser el rey de todos los asnos del mundo! ¿Adónde hallaré yo
otro tan hombre de bien como tú? ¡Alivio de mis trabajos, consuelo de mis
tribulaciones, tú solo me entendías los pensamientos, y yo a ti, como si fuera tu
propio hermano de leche! (80)
This exaggerated proclamation is an amplification of the fondness the original Sancho
displayed for his donkey. Both think of their asses as steadfast companions, although
Avellaneda’s takes it to the extreme by insinuating they were raised together as brothers.
A little later on, when talking with the cleric Mosén Valentín, Sancho mentions that he
can communicate with his donkey because he understands “la lengua asnuna muy
lindamente” (85). In chapter 33, Sancho greets Don Quixote by asking, “Sea mi señor
muy bien venido, y gracias a Dios que acá estamos todos; mas, dígame vuesa merced,
¿acordóse de echar de comer al rucio la noche pasada? Que estará el pobre del asno con
gran pena por no haberme visto de ayer acá; y así, le suplico le diga de mi parte cuando le
vea, que les beso las manos muchas veces a él y a mi buen amigo Rocinante” (406). This
scenario is similar to when the original Sancho asks Doña Rodríguez to look after his
donkey at the Duke and Duchess’s; however, because Sancho is asking this of his master
instead of an unknown lady-in-waiting, this smacks of greater disrespect. Avellaneda’s
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Sancho is incapable of distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate social
behavior. He does come across as silly, though, because he requests that his donkey be
told that he sends his regards. Lastly, this Sancho mentions his donkey when he writes to
his wife, too, stating that he does not think it to be fond of the Court.
For the greater part of the novel, the apocryphal Sancho’s love for his donkey is
similar to the relationship the original squire has with his beast. Nevertheless, at the end
of the novel when Sancho is offered employment with the Archipámpano, he suddenly
has no problem parting with his jument. Avellaneda presents the readers with a Sancho
who is loyal neither to his donkey nor to his master. The apocryphal Sancho as a whole
serves as an excessive representation of gluttony and uncouthness. He is grotesquely
funny. Also, where Cervantes fashions a well-rounded character, Avellaneda takes to an
extreme degree the supposed incongruous duality that the original Sancho espouses and
that the translator cites as apocryphal. Whereas the original Sancho is sometimes
uneducated and naïve and at other times shrewd and logical, Avellaneda’s Sancho has
unaccounted for character flaws. For example, he also does not know how to read, but he
is still capable of incorporating Latin phrases into his sentences, like when he tells a
soldier “y seamos amigos usque ad mortuorum” (165). In addition, he references Greek
mythology, albeit incorrectly, such as when he says he can swim like Leander and Nero
(275). His error lies in that he has confused Nero with Hero, which is a very humorous
mistake, considering the difference in these two figures, but because the readers already
know he is uneducated, these erudite references create disparity and inverisimilitude in
his character. Aylward, in comparing the two Sanchos, comments,
The Aragonese author’s main goal in composing his sequel was to make his
readers laugh. He sought to achieve that end by magnifying the abundant comic
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traits of the simple-minded squire Cervantes had sketched so skillfully in Part
One, especially in the early episodes of Chs. 1-22. On the whole, he succeeded.
But then the fates began to conspire against him. In the course of writing his own
Second Part, Cervantes decided to endow what had originally been little more
than a buffoon with a genuine human personality, including a sly, subtle wit and a
previously undeveloped native intelligence that some would later call folk
wisdom or plain old common sense. Avellaneda’s Sancho, unlucky for the author,
was doomed. (40)
Avellaneda may have been attempting to imitate what others interpreted as a dubious
duality found in the original Sancho. He may have been caught up in making his Sancho
as preposterous and outlandishly funny as possible. Either way he has taken his
stereotyped character into the vein of the absurd and as a result has created something
that departs from the original Cervantine mold and goes in a very different direction.
Cervantes’s characters can also be understood as stereotypes, but in a very
different sense from Avellaneda’s. Giovanni Papini, in Retratos, sums up Don Quixote by
stating, “no hay tan sólo la sátira de los libros de caballería, sino de todos los géneros
literarios sin excepción” (24). But rather than being a tool that attacks or ridicules
various types of literary genres, this novel is actually more like the playing ground for
these forms. It provides the space for these genres to interact, where the generic formulae
for chivalric romances, pastoral and sentimental novels, and the picaresque take shape in
the form of characters such as Don Quixote, Grisóstomo, Anselmo, and Ginés de
Pasamonte, who then intermingle with one another. And it is via the contrasting of these
literary boundaries, played out by the actions and dialogues of different characters, that
the clashing of these formulae gives rise to humor. Don Quixote, for instance, personifies
books of chivalry, but because these coordinates do not function in a novel the same as
they would in a chivalric romance, his grand gestures and eloquent language collides with
the stark, unforgiving pattern presented by the novel. Avellaneda does not understand this
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and instead allows for the realism and pragmatism of the novel to take precedence over
the chivalric vision of Don Quixote, which thereby relegates this character to the
restrictive mold of maniac. Cervantes’s Sancho combines many of the characteristics of
the rustic peasant and the theatrical gracioso types. Placed in the realistic setting of a
novel, and paired with Don Quixote, Sancho loyally follows his master on his crazy
escapades and, although clumsy at times, he is allowed to go beyond the possibilities of
the two character types. Rising to the occasion of the governorship, for instance, he
develops beyond the capabilities of the peasant and the gracioso. However, whenever he
steps beyond the prescribed boundaries of his character types, he is singled out and
attention is called to this supposed transgression. Avellaneda, possibly more accustomed
to working with the entremés as Aylward has suggested, does not understand or does not
care to allow his characters to go beyond the roles that he defines them with. Because his
Sancho is only gluttonous, ignorant, and disrespectful, Avellaneda has limited him to the
part of a laughing stock. Even though there are many graciosos who exude a keen wit
and make situations funnier by playing with words or tricking their masters, Avellaneda
has not imbued his squire with these capabilities.
Perhaps the greatest disparity between Cervantes’s and Avellaneda’s novels
occurs in their treatment of Dulcinea. In Cervantes’s work, she is Don Quixote’s
motivator. Derived from the blueprints of chivalric romances, she is fashioned by Don
Quixote, being a necessary ingredient to his motivation as knight errant. The irony here is
that Don Quixote, attempting to replicate the formula found in books of chivalry in order
to validate his knight errancy, not only is not in love (in the traditional sense) with his
damsel but has chosen a peasant girl as his model instead of a lady of class. The readers
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learn from Sancho that she is loud and also “tira tan bien una barra como el más forzudo
zagal . . . es moza de chapa . . . [y] no es nada melindrosa, porque tiene mucho de
cortesana: con todos se burla y de todo hace mueca y donaire” (310-11). Her parents’ last
names also add to her description, as Gabriel Maldonado Palmero, in Quién es quién en
el Quijote, points out:
el apellido Corchuelo remita al alcornoque, sinónimo de torpeza (lo mismo que
Nogales), por lo que los apellidos ponen de relieve la rusticidad de los
progenitores de Aldonza. Por las peculiaridades que se le atribuyen, además,
aparece como una campesina hombruna y recia que “tiene mucho de cortesana,”
lo que la transforma en mujer libre y licenciosa. Es decir, que la adorada dama del
Caballero de la Triste Figura es la antítesis de las delicadas doncellas del universo
caballeresco. (32)
Again, Cervantes is playing with generic concepts, where the vision of an unattainable,
peerless damsel collides with the textual reality of a natural peasant girl. Don Quixote’s
need for a damsel transforms Aldonza Lorenzo into Dulcinea, but when Sancho realizes
who Dulcinea really is, the transformation is exposed. Because she never appears in the
text, this contrast between Don Quixote’s vision and Sancho’s disenchantment of
Dulcinea remains without resolution throughout the duration of the novel, providing a
continual element of humor. Don Quixote, through necessity, conjures a princess from a
peasant girl. Sancho discovers her true identity and through this discovery disenchants
her. But then in Part II, chapter 10, through necessity also, Sancho enchants another
peasant girl and convinces Don Quixote that she is Dulcinea. Why is the knight unable to
see the vision of Dulcinea as Sancho describes it to him and instead can only witness an
unkempt wench smelling of garlic? Because Don Quixote created a chimera in fashioning
Dulcinea and probably would not have been able to recognize her for the peasant girl she
stemmed from if he had chanced to meet her in the text, especially judging from how
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Don Quixote interprets Sancho’s earlier rendition of meeting with her in chapter 31. In
chivalric romances, the characters are hollow stereotypes, fitting the roles of hero,
beautiful maiden, evil sorcerer, etc. Don Quixote understands this and has built his vision
of Dulcinea upon the protocol of the beautiful maiden; Dulcinea is a hollow chimera very
loosely based on the neighbor girl Aldonza Lorenzo. Whether or not he realizes that he
would not recognize Aldonza if she appeared before him is not important; he cannot
recognize her because he is visualizing a superficial image based on what he has read.
This vision is exposed to the readers by Sancho’s disenchantment of her in the Sierra
Morena, but for Don Quixote it continues to remain steadfast, much to the amusement of
everyone else. This is why he cannot recognize the peasant girl that Sancho has
transformed. Because he actually sees her, he cannot envision her as anything but what he
sees. His vision is entirely based on what he has read, therefore the realistic image of a
labor girl cannot make it through his chivalric filter; it simply does not compute.
Coincidentally, Sancho’s enchantment of the peasant girl comes back to hurt him
later on when the Duke and Duchess pick up where he left off. In chapter 34 of the
second part, the Duke and Duchess and their cohorts give Sancho the lofty responsibility
of disenchanting Dulcinea, in that he must give himself three thousand three hundred
lashes. With regard to Dulcinea’s enchantment here, the disguised Merlin claims, “Supe
su encantamento y su desgracia, / y su transformación de gentil dama en rústica aldeana”
(295). Dulcinea’s enchantment consists of her transformation into a peasant girl, which is
ironically what Sancho had done by disenchanting her for the readers in the Sierra
Morena. Cervantes continually plays with the borders between history and fiction,
fantasy and reality, and truth and lies. The enchantment/disenchantment of Dulcinea is no
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different, since it is built around Don Quixote’s faith in books of chivalry as well as
Sancho’s knowledge of Aldonza and his enchantment of the country lass, information he
let slip to the Duchess in chapter 33. The irony lies in how the Duke and Duchess have
fashioned a punishment for Sancho out of Dulcinea’s disenchantment and the peasant
girl’s enchantment, of which he has played an integral part. Sancho is pulled into his own
creation and therefore must also create, or rather carry out, his punishment. He has given
credence to Don Quixote’s belief in Dulcinea by enchanting the peasant girl and by lying
to his master. If he admits this now, he exposes himself to everyone as dishonest. He is in
a pickle and therefore finally agrees to the self-punishment, also because the Duke puts
his governorship on the line. In accepting Merlin’s sentence, Sancho lets slip, “yo
procuraré salir de la deuda lo más presto posible, porque goce el mundo de la hermosura
de la señora doña Dulcinea de Toboso, pues, según parece, al revés de lo que yo pensaba,
en efecto es hermosa” (300; my emphasis). Although it is possible to interpret that
Sancho undergoes a transformation himself, believing now that what he knew of
Dulcinea is incorrect, it is more likely that he is being a smart aleck here and getting in
the last word.
None of this teasing or complexity surrounding dis/enchantments or un/truths
exist in Avellaneda’s version. In fact, Dulcinea is relegated to a very small role. She
appears in chapter 2 through a letter addressed to Don Quixote, which is in response to
one he had sent her two days previously. Sancho describes how he delivered Don
Quixote’s letter to Dulcinea and how he found her in the stables taking care of the horses.
According to the squire, upon seeing him she threw a shovelful of manure at him, coating
his beard with the foul matter. The readers can only assume that Sancho is telling the
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truth and not inventing another encounter in the same way the original Sancho did in Part
I because no indication of this is provided by the narrator. This rendition of Dulcinea
paints the crassest image of a peasant girl for the readers. She comes across as hostile and
aggressive, an image that is further substantiated by her letter two pages later:
A Martín Quijada, el mentecapto.
El portador désta había de ser un hermano mío, para darle la respuesta en las
costillas con un gentil garrote. ¿No sabe lo que le digo, señor Quijada? Que por el
siglo de mi madre, que si otra vez me escribe de emperatriz o reina, poniéndome
nombres burlescos como es A la infanta manchega Dulcinea del Toboso y otros
semejantes que me suele escribir, qué tengo de hacer que se le acuerde. Mi
nombre propio es Aldonza Lorenzo o Nogales, por mar y por tierra. (34)
She is just as rude as the apocryphal Sancho is, which is perhaps an indication of how
Avellaneda interprets country folk. But like what frequently happens with Sancho,
Aldonza utilizes words such as portador and burlescos which, in judging from the rest of
her word choices, do not quite fit the type of rustic speech Avellaneda is attempting to
emulate. Don Quixote, who is aggravated by her responses, does nothing but complain to
Don Álvaro about her in the second chapter and throughout the rest of the novel. Because
the knight never speaks highly of her, the readers are not privy to his visions of Dulcinea
and instead only hear about the brutish, angry Aldonza. The Dulcinea the readers had
come to know through Cervantes’s knight never surfaces in the apocryphal text. Instead,
she is utilized as the target of Don Quixote’s bitterness and in the majority of the
seventeen times her name is mentioned, it is proceeded by the word ingrata. In chapter 4,
for example, Don Quixote changes his nickname from the Caballero de la Triste Figura
to the Caballero Desamorado, something he does due to “las ingratitudes de la infanta
Dulcinea del Toboso, causa total de mi desamor” (53). Two chapter later, as he passes
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through Ariza with Sancho, it occurs to Don Quixote to have posters put up around town
that make the following challenge:
que cualquier caballero natural o andante que dijese que las mujeres merecían ser
amadas de los caballeros, mentía, como él sólo se lo haría confesar uno a uno o
diez a diez. Bien que merecían ser defendidas y amparadas en sus cuitas, como
manda el orden de caballería, pero que en lo demás, que se sirviesen los hombres
dellas para la generación con el vínculo del Santo matrimonio, sin más arrequives
de festeos, pues desengañaban bien cuán gran locura era lo contrario las
ingratitudes de la infanta Dulcinea del Toboso. (70)
With one stroke, Avellaneda has severed Don Quixote from his Dulcinea and removed
the underlying principle behind his motivation as knight errant. P. E. Russell, in “The
Madness of Don Quixote,” stresses that Don Quixote’s love for Dulcinea is “the very
keystone of his hallucinatory existence as a knight errant” (84). Perhaps Avellaneda was
concerned with emphasizing marriage over what he interpreted to be the worshipping of
women in books of chivalry, or maybe he did not understand the importance Dulcinea
played in the formation of Don Quixote, but as a result Dulcinea has been demoted to the
stifling role of ungrateful country wench and throughout the novel only serves as the
target of Don Quixote’s bitterness over unrequited love. At the same time, this means that
Don Quixote has been cut loose from his religion of chivalric romances, in the sense that
the propelling motivator of his actions, Dulcinea, is no longer there to guide him. He is
set adrift on a sea of rash madness since he no longer has a purpose and now only
imitates the fighting and archaic language from books of chivalry. He is no longer a loco
cuerdo and instead the readers and characters only see him as a maniac.
I mentioned earlier on page 8 that Cervantes never fully read Avellaneda’s text.
Had he done so, I believe he would have placed greater emphasis on Don Quixote’s
continual devotion to her in Part II. Although Don Quixote often declares his constancy
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and love for her, he never learns about the false Quixote’s dismissal of her. Judging from
the way both Sancho and Don Quixote react to the apocryphal text in chapter 72, had
Cervantes read Avellaneda’s text completely and seen how Dulcinea was treated, he
would have underscored Dulcinea’s importance to Don Quixote or at least have
mentioned her in contrast to Bárbara.
In Avellaneda’s text, Dulcinea’s replacement does not enter the scene until
chapter 22, a little more than halfway through the novel. On page 51 above, Maldonado
Palmero refers to Dulcinea as embodying the antithesis of the damsels of chivalric
romances because Cervantes has based her on the loud, indelicate, and smelly Aldonza
(32). Bárbara, however, is even more strikingly the antithesis of Don Quixote’s vision of
Dulcinea and thus the converse of the delicate, feminine, and chaste maidens of chivalric
romance lore. She is around Don Quixote’s age, is dirty and lice-infested, and works in
Alcalá de Henares as both a madam and a prostitute, although Don Quixote refers to her
as Zenobia, Queen of the Amazons. She is ugly, speaks crassly, and wears a scar on her
face from earlier run-ins with the law. Whereas Cervantes’s Dulcinea is loosely based on
a poor farm girl, at least she is “una moza labradora de muy buen parecer” (103). With
Bárbara, it is as if Avellaneda wanted to get away from any kind of beauty that could
have been associated with Aldonza Lorenzo. He therefore creates an entirely new
character representing the worst traits of a woman. The contrast is all the more shocking
and ridiculous when Don Quixote can only see Bárbara as possessing a “rara y peregrina
fermosura” (267). This narrative tactic coincides with the overriding derogatory humor in
the novel. Bárbara, with her crudeness and sexual provocations, adds another layer of
humor to the storyline. But as with Don Quixote and Sancho, she produces laughter at her
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expense and the readers only very rarely laugh with her. Where Cervantes has juxtaposed
the medieval representation of female beauty against a realistic country lass, Avellaneda
only portrays the grotesque vision of female ugliness. By the end of the novel, she is
written out of the picture and is deposited in a “casa de mujeres de su calidad,” or, as the
chapter title informs, in “las arrepentidas” (424). Bárbara, therefore, is the opposite of
Cervantes’s Dulcinea.
At the end of my previous chapter, I touched on the difference in treatment of
journey and laughter in Cervantes’s and Avellaneda’s texts. In comparing both versions’
comicality in this chapter, it is obvious that Cervantes has woven a much more intricate
craft, where humor is evidenced on many levels. Avellaneda’s novel for the most part
exhibits crude, less refined humor, which in many ways works to confine the characters
and leads to stagnation in the text. This being said, it is impossible to demarcate the two
novels to a carnival/stagnation dichotomy, as Iffland insinuates in Fiestas y aguafiestas
and as I had originally hoped to do. After analyzing both works, it now seems clearer to
me that some of the carnivalesque elements of the 1605 version somehow found their
way into the apocryphal text, whether intentionally or inadvertently. At the same time,
the reverse also occurs in Cervantes’s Part II, where the type of humor Avellaneda
harnesses is similar to the humor showcased by Sansón Carrasco and the Duke and
Duchess. Perhaps in part as a reaction to Avellaneda’s humoristic style, Cervantes has
amplified the satirizing of his protagonists, contrasting this with his novel’s original,
carnivalesque humor, or what Iffland refers to as “el enfoque erasmiano de la locura
como una efervescencia creadora” (186n207). Carnival laughter, in other words, is an
uplifting mirth that provokes rejuvenation of the text as well as of the spirit. Its essence is
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generally demonstrated via the inversion of opposites, especially with regard to
sociopolitical positions. There is also a frequent submersion of the sacred or sublime into
the base or corporeal realm, where the former is destroyed or dismantled only to be
reborn and therefore to initiate this cycle all over again. Mikhail Bakhtin, in Rabelais and
His World, defines this type of mirth as a festive laughter: “It is not an individual reaction
to a ‘comic’ event. Carnival laughter is the laughter of all the people. . . . It is directed at
all and everyone, including the carnival’s participants. The entire world is seen in its droll
aspect, in its gay relativity. . . . This laughter is ambivalent: it is gay, triumphant, and at
the same time mocking, deriding. It asserts and denies, it buries and revives” (11-12).
From the very beginning of Cervantes’s novel, in the prologue of Part I, this laughter is
demonstrated through the fictionalized author and his friend, who make fun of the
necessity to begin a book with a lofty prologue as well as an “innumerabilidad y catálogo
de los acostumbrados sonetos, epigramas y elogios que al principio de los libros suelen
ponerse” (80). This fictionalized author also mentions, “También ha de carecer mi libro
de sonetos al principio, a lo menos de sonetos cuyos autores sean duques, marqueses,
condes, obispos, damas o poetas celebérrimos” (80). The friend suggests he invent all of
these things, an act which undermines the reason behind other authors before him who
have followed this practice. Both characters are making fun of this part of the literary
process. At the same time, however, they also are admitting that Cervantes did not obtain
sonnets from wealthy patrons. And although it is not specified whether this is intentional
on Cervantes’s part or whether he has avoided or could not obtain the extensive financial
support normally provided by wealthy patrons to successful authors, they are nonetheless
allowing themselves to be laughed at. The humor is directed both at the artifices of the
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publication and marketing of literature and at themselves. From the start, therefore, the
readers understand that the laughter is multidirectional; it is for everyone and directed at
everyone. In Letter and Spirit in Hispanic Writers, Alan Trueblood believes that, with
regard to Cervantes’s overall comic vision, Cervantes wrote in the hopes of alleviating
sadness in his readers. Trueblood states, “Cervantes estaba convencido de que el arte
cómico, y la risa que despertaba, tenía eficacia terapéutica, al disipar los humores
melancólicos y restablecer un buen equilibrio temperamental” (79). We see proof of this
again in the prologue, when the fictional author hopes that in reading this text “el
melancólico se mueva a risa” (84). Trueblood also interprets an underlying message in
what he describes as the mono-dialogue Cervantes-as-author has with Cervantes-asfriend. When the former showers the latter with his worries about publishing his novel
and the latter responds by “disparando en una carga de risa,” Trueblood understands this
to be a reflection of Cervantes’s underlying message of ‘don’t take yourself too
seriously.’ Trueblood observes, “Su vía de acceso a un equilibrio de seriedad no es lo
grave, sino lo leve” (65). According to Trueblood’s reading, Cervantes’s designs allowed
for the readers not only to laugh at what was found within the text but also to take away
from the text a healthier, more alleviated mentality, attained through laughter.
With regard to Cervantes’s novel, there are many examples of this rejuvenating
laughter. The duality of the characters, who evolve and develop both individually and as
a pair, foments growth through their spirit of adventure and conquest. Returning to my
earlier idea of visualizing various characters in the text as personifications of different
genres, their interactions and collisions produce laughter by way of contrast. This is the
same kind of laughter that levels the playing field within the text and allows for an
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inversion of stereotypes, such as when the peasant Sancho becomes governor. It also
plays with dualities, an example of which is Don Quixote as cuerdo loco. In mixing
dualisms or reversing social order, the boundaries between society and its taboos either
disappear or are set in contrast with each other, which in turn allows for the mingling of
the vulgar or base with the polite or noble. Because the novel is composed of journeys
and because the characters make frequent stops at inns, there is ample opportunity for the
interacting of characters from all different walks of life, some of whom have been
fashioned by Cervantes as representations of literary genres. At the inn, Don Quixote
confuses Maritornes with the damsel that he thought would be waiting for him, following
the protocol he remembered from chivalric romances. Sancho is subjected to a blanketing
at the same inn by a group of traveling merchants. Later on, the Captive and Zoraida
relate their tale, which is filled with Byzantine overtones. Along the sentimental vein,
Luscinda and Cardenio, Dorotea and Fernando, and Luis and Clara encounter each other
in the inn. It is here, too, that Sancho and Don Quixote run into the picaresque Ginés de
Pasamonte, disguised as Maese Pedro. These characters’ comings and goings, coupled
with the various adventures that they bring, help juxtapose and put into contrast their
lifestyles as well as the literary traditions from which they stem. While not all the stories
produce laughter, humor often emerges through irony or parody. At the same time, the
interaction between differing generic patterns is an upheaval of literary routine and a
rejuvenation of literary technique. Bakhtin points out that carnival represents a constant
cycle of seriousness/laughter, of oppression/freedom that allows for a society’s
enrichment, rebirth, and growth. Aspects of this are visible in Cervantes’s novel, where
things such as social hierarchies, chivalric values, and fact versus fiction are unsettled
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and exposed by laughter. Bakhtin explains, “Laughter demolishes fear and piety before
an object, before a world, making of it an object of familiar contact and thus clearing the
ground for an absolutely free investigation of it. Laugher is a vital factor in laying down
that prerequisite for fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the
world realistically” (Dialogic 23). In Cervantes’s case, it is the ambience of laughter that
allows for literary formulae as well as social ideologies to be played out and examined by
the characters and readers.
When analyzing carnival, Umberto Eco uses very specific coordinates: “Carnival,
in order to be enjoyed, requires that rules and rituals be parodied, and that these rules and
rituals already be recognized and respected. One must know to what degree certain
behaviors are forbidden, and must feel the majesty of the forbidding norm, to appreciate
their transgression. Without a valid law to break, carnival is impossible” (Carnival! 6).
Whereas Don Quixote never realizes he transgresses any laws, the readers are aware that
at times civil, social, and religious laws are challenged or broken within the narrative. For
example, Don Quixote frees the galley slaves and inadvertently violates civil law.
Ironically, Don Quixote has judged that a chivalric law was being breached, spurring him
into action to right wrongs, even though his act now contravenes another type of law.
Furthermore, he breaks social as well as religious laws, such as when he knights himself
in chapter 3 and later when he interferes with the nighttime funeral procession and attacks
a clergyman in chapter 19 of Part I. In books of chivalry, the laws that knights strive to
uphold generally coincide with the social, civil, and religious laws of the societies that
they represent. Cervantes, however, has inverted the relationship between these laws.
They are no longer compatible and, through Don Quixote’s visions, they contradict one
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another. Eco understands these and other incidences of carnival in Don Quixote to be a
criticism of society overall: “Reading Cervantes, we are not subjugated by the majesty of
an ‘eternal’ or rediscovered law, and we are not presupposing a law that also holds for
ourselves. Simply, we criticize with Cervantes a set of cultural and intertextual frames.
Thus the performance of humor acts as a form of social criticism. Humor is always, if not
metalinguistic, metasemiotic: through verbal language or some other sign system it casts
in doubt other cultural codes” (8). Rather than being a platform for criticizing society in
the sense Eco means, I find that the laughter in Don Quixote allows for an examination of
different aspects of this culture. It does not judge but rather provokes reflection. As
discussed in the initial chapter of this thesis, the contrasting of ideas, aside from
producing laughter in Cervantes’s novel, allows for the questioning of ideas. Whether
these cultural codes are cast in doubt or are simply observed depends on the reader.
Conversely, it is in Avellaneda’s text that critical laughter appears, where Don Quixote
and Sancho are punished time and again for attempting to reach beyond their positions in
society.
One of the most obvious ways that Cervantes arranges for this thought-provoking
laughter is through parody. Ardis Nelson, in Cabrera Infante in the Menippean Tradition,
labels parody as an important ingredient of the carnival attitude (17). Don Quixote is, of
course, parody par excellence of the knights found in books of chivalry. The episode of
Marcela and Grisóstomo in Part I, chapters 12 through 14, is another form of parody of
the pastoral romance. In Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Bakhtin interprets parody as
“the creation of a double which discrowns its counterpart” (105). Don Quixote, by
bringing to life books of chivalry within the realm of a different genre, de-crowns this
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form for the readers. Although he believes he is otherwise, for the characters and readers,
Don Quixote is the antithesis of many of the characteristics associated with literary
knights errant. Whereas knights errant should right wrongs, Don Quixote often times
ends up wronging rights. His imitation of knight errantry accidentally parodies, or
discrowns, the very creed he wants to follow.
Likewise, Marcela, by stepping out of the pastoral romance into which she has
been cast, declares herself free, refuses to follow the protocol everyone else expects of
her, and therefore turns this genre’s dynamics upside down as well. Yvonne Jehenson, in
“The Pastoral Episode in Cervantes’ Don Quijote: Marcela Once Again,” explains that in
this episode “Cervantes subtly undermines the conventions of the pastoral genre and has
Marcela explode traditional literary codes” (17). Because she refuses to play the part of
the pastoral shepherdess as prescribed in literature and instead speaks out and defends her
lifestyle, “she erupts into the circumscribed world of the goatherds and explodes it by
assuming a negative function” (26). In her own way, her actions turn the pastoral genre
on its head, which would be interpreted as a negative function within the realm of this
genre, according to Jehenson. However, outside of the realm of the pastoral and within
the more cynical parameters of the novel, Marcela’s action exposes the inconsistencies of
pastoral literature and could be interpreted as satirical. What Don Quixote does next adds
another element of humor to this episode. Jehenson summarizes: “Don Quijote, sword in
hand, leaps to her defense. He will let no one harm Marcela—a Marcela whom we have
seen is perfectly capable of taking care of herself” (28). It is precisely because the readers
are aware that she is capable of defending herself that irony surfaces through the knight’s
reaction, because Marcela’s inversion of the pastoral genre’s parameters renders Don
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Quixote’s chivalric attitude obsolete. Because these two characters serve in some way as
allegories of literary genres, their interactions within the new arena of the novel highlight
the generic imperfections from whence they were created and therefore allow humor to
surface.
Looking at the original and apocryphal novels of Don Quixote on a broader scale,
parodying is also visible here: the 1605 text is supposedly created as a parody of chivalric
romance. Avellaneda’s narrative in turn discrowns Cervantes’s and returns the two
protagonists to the limited roles of madman and servant. Cervantes has the last word,
however, when he parodies in his Part II the critical laughter found in the apocryphal text.
I have already discussed many of the elements of comicality in Avellaneda and
have shown how the protagonists are harnessed and tricked into performing or
overreacting for their social superiors. In general, the humor contained in this text is
unidirectional and is almost always at the expense of Don Quixote, Sancho, or Bárbara.
The readers are encouraged to laugh at these three protagonists by the narrator, who
indicates after almost every episode how the other characters laughed at them. The
majority of the comic interludes in this novel provide laughter for some at the expense of
others, but rather than creating an upheaval of established norms or by equalizing the
playing field, this laughter more closely resembles Schadenfreude, or epicaricacy, which
is the act of taking pleasure from someone else’s misfortune. This kind of laughter is
disparaging and is very different from the type contained in the original Don Quixote,
although it does exist there, too. If it is the main representation of laughter in the text, the
overall tone is negative or stagnant. The carnival spirit of laughter is not one of
immobilization and repression, but rather of a recycling and rejuvenation where all
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hierarchies are leveled and there is a mixture of all aspects of society. In Part I, both types
of humor appear and I believe they set the stage for the differing directions Avellaneda’s
and Cervantes’s texts take in the second part. One of the clearer examples of carnival
laughter takes place at the inn in Part I, chapter 17, when Sancho is spirited outside and
blanketed by a group of traveling merchants who were “gente alegre, bien intencionada,
maleante y juguetona” (224). Sancho is tossed up and down many times, representing the
cyclical movement of carnival where life passes from one extreme to the other and then
repeats the process. They use his blanket from the night before that, thanks to his
experience with the balsam of Fierabrás, he had dirtied. His returning to the earthiness or
crudity of life is put into contrast with the sublimity the sky represents as Sancho falls
only to be again hurled repeatedly into the air. This is a very physical and emotional
experience for Sancho who is treated “como un perro por carnestolendas” (224). He has
been temporarily transformed into an animal here, de-crowned from his position as
human and humiliated. This is an incident that effects him considerably, something that
he mentions several times throughout the rest of the novel. But it is a very different kind
of humor than that of chapter 52, when the goat herder Eugenio and Don Quixote come
to blows. Although this fight contains elements of carnival, such as when Eugenio decrowns Don Quixote by knocking him off his horse and how they proceed to roll around
in the food laid out for lunch, it is the actions of the bystanders that alter the tone of the
scene. No one attempts to break up the fight or aide Don Quixote except Sancho. The
canon and curate do keep the goat herder from getting a hold of a knife “mas el barbero
hizo de suerte que el cabrero cogió debajo de sí a don Quijote, sobre el cual llovió tanto
número de mojicones, que del rostro del caballero llovía tanta sangre como del suyo.
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Reventaban de risa el canónigo y el cura, saltaban los cuadrilleros de gozo, zuzaban los
unos y los otros, como hace a los perros cuando en pendencia están trabados” (584).
Iffland associates all of this with the carnival atmosphere: “se trata de ‘regocijo y fiesta’
como el narrador lo describe” (115). But I think it is important not to overlook the
dynamic of this scene. Although there frequently exists an element of violence in carnival
activities, in this scene the violence is exploited for the benefit of non-participants. Don
Quixote and Eugenio have started a fight, but rather than actively taking part in the fight,
or trying to prevent it, the other characters convert this scuffle into a spectacle for their
own amusement. It is only the sound of a horn from a religious procession that distracts
the knight and stops the fighting. Carnival laughter takes precedence again as he mounts
his horse and rides off to confront the procession of the Virgin Mary, believing her to be
an abducted damsel. Interestingly, here the barber and curate step in to try and stop him,
something they do not do in the previous mêlée. Instead, they and the other onlookers
thoroughly enjoyed the fight, goading on the two opponents. This is one of the most
obvious examples in Part I of Schadenfreude, where Eugenio’s and Don Quixote’s brawl
is turned into a spectator sport. The narrator emphasizes everyone’s laughter and
merriment, with the exception of Sancho who is held back from assisting his master by
one of the canon’s servants. Previously in the novel, other characters enjoyed the mad
antics of Don Quixote, but this is the first time they do not actively participate in them,
but rather go out of their way to enjoy the spectacle and do not attempt to stop the fight.
This sharp contrast between participant and spectator represents a humor that differs from
carnival laughter, where everyone takes an active part. It reestablishes hierarchies, with
the viewers looking down on the contributors. In Avellaneda’s novel, almost all of the
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humor is of this type, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and Bárbara are continuously provoked
into performing for an audience. Cervantes also plays with this type of humor in Part II,
in particular during the episodes with the Duke and Duchess. Similar to the way
Avellaneda harnesses his protagonists for the amusement of the other characters and
readers, the Duke and Duchess also stage several adventures for Don Quixote and
Sancho. But because there is a much stronger current of carnival laughter in Cervantes,
this overshadows what might otherwise be understood as a more satirical, repressive tone.
Anthony Close, in Cervantes and the Comic Mind, observes that the jokes and tricks
played by the Duke and Duchess and their cohorts “are filled with a merrily ludic,
theatrically creative, and celebratory spirit . . . They are ludic, because, though designed
to make fun of the two heroes, they set out to do so in such a way as to nourish their
illusions of fulfillment and elicit their active participation in further adventures without
suffering injury or offense. . . . The joy that they express . . . [is] a spontaneous one which
unites all participants, temporarily dissolving hierarchies, bitterness, and rancour” (331).
Although I disagree that there exists a point during the episodes with the Duke and
Duchess in which the boundaries between social hierarchies ever completely disappear, it
is true that all of the characters participate in the pranks and activities. In Avellaneda’s
novel, those of higher class are rarely ever more than observers, and instead have their
servants or pages dress up as the Black Knight or the giant Bramidán de Tayajunque, for
example. The Archipámpano only observes the antics of Sancho and Don Quixote. Even
Don Álvaro, who interacts with Don Quixote and Sancho throughout most of the
storyline and comes to their rescue several times, never acts in any of the pranks that he
and his friends fashion. It should also be pointed out that the apocryphal Quixote always
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loses his battles and is even incarcerated at one point. In other words, he never discrowns
but instead is always subdued or overcome. Cervantes’s Quixote both subverts and is decrowned, therefore representing the two sides of carnival activity. This is the purpose of
carnival laughter, something that is very different from the majority of the condescending
laughter found in Avellaneda. As Iffland points out, the humor in the apocryphal version
“parte con preferencia desde instancias aristocráticas o nobles, desde arriba para abajo”
(236).
Although the laughter in Avellaneda’s text is generally repressive and does not
permit the characters to develop beyond their set roles, there are two aspects which
interfere with this fixed humor. The first aspect is Sancho, whose impudence and
gluttony contradict the norms of social decency. Avellaneda makes him the laughing
stock, along with Don Quixote, but his actions and language nonetheless continually
transgress social hierarchies. Even though Sancho is denied development or growth,
because he is never truly isolated nor entrapped by this laughter to the point that his
actions cease to attack the established norm, Avellaneda’s attempt to control and relegate
Sancho to the role of a harmless target of laughter fails. Iffland states that in Avellaneda
“puede haber Carnaval, pero servirá sólo para ejemplificar lo risible, lo irrisorio, del
proyecto de ascenso” of Sancho and Don Quixote (268). But, in copying some of the
initial characteristics of the original Sancho, that of speaking out of turn and saying too
much, Avellaneda is unable to contain his Sancho to a role of subservience. Also,
because the apocryphal squire is gluttonous and continues to identify with his donkey in
imitation of the original Sancho, these factors associate him with the baser, more
animalistic side of carnival. The laughter produced by his excessive eating and by his
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demonstrative love for his beast accidentally injects the text with a light spirit of
rejuvenation. This mixing of the mundane with the refined and an emphasis on corporeal
attributes serve as attempts to fertilize an otherwise stagnant text. I say accidentally
because this aspect of Sancho appears to have been overlooked or misunderstood by
Avellaneda and goes against the grain of the rest of the novel. Nevertheless, because this
type of laughter is contradicted by the overall repressive tone of the novel, and because
Sancho gives up his donkey and agrees to a more refined lifestyle with the Archipámpano
in Madrid at the end of the novel, this weak element of carnival laughter is finally
overpowered by the rest of the text.
The other element of carnival laughter in Avellaneda’s novel is its ending. In the
penultimate chapter, Avellaneda consigns Sancho to the city of Madrid as the
Archipámpano’s buffoon. Bárbara is deposited at a house for wayward women. The final
chapter is dedicated to explaining how Don Quixote was tricked into going to the Casa
del Nuncio, an insane asylum in Toledo. After Don Álvaro visits Don Quixote for a
while, to make sure he is adjusting to confinement and to otherwise look after him, Don
Álvaro returns home and the narrator writes that this concludes the story that had been
found in the Manchegan archives. But the book does not end here. Instead, the narrator
continues to talk about Don Quixote:
Lo que toca al fin desta prisión y de su vida, y de los trabajos que hasta
que llegó a él tuvo, no se sabe de cierto. Pero barruntos hay, y tradiciones de
viejísimos manchegos, de que sanó y salió de dicha Casa de Nuncio; y pasando
por la corte, vio a Sancho, el cual, como estaba en prosperidad, le dio algunos
dineros para que se volviese a su tierra, viéndole ya al parecer asentado. Y lo
mismo hicieron el Archipámpano y el príncipe Perianeo, para que mercase alguna
cabalgadura, con fin de que se fuese con más comodidad; porque Rocinante
dejólo don Álvaro en la Casa del Nuncio, en servicio de la cual acabó sus
honrados días, por más que otros digan lo contrario.
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Pero, como tarde la locura se cura, dicen que en saliendo de la corte,
volvió a su tema y que comprando otro mejor caballo, se fue la vuelta de Castilla
la Vieja, en la cual le sucedieron estupendas y jamás oídas aventuras . . . y él, sin
escudero, pasó por Salamanca, Ávila y Valladolid, llamándose el Caballero de los
Trabajos, los cuales no faltará mejor pluma que los celebre. (447-48)
Although the narrator frames this information around “barruntos” and “tradiciones de
viejísimos manchegos” and mentions that this last piece of the knight’s history is not
known for certain,16 he implies that even though Don Quixote is imprisoned in the insane
asylum, he is later released and then returns to his old ways of madness. In the imitation
of books of chivalry, Avellaneda appears to have left the ending open and, similar also to
how Cervantes ended Part I, he invites someone else to continue the tale. This openendedness of the narrative structure, coupled with Don Quixote’s return to madness,
undoes all that the suppressive laughter managed to contain in the previous pages of the
text. Rather than the closed ending of the 1615 novel (the protagonist’s death), or
possibility of permanent institutionalization of Don Quixote that initially occurs in the
Avellaneda sequel, the ending of the apocryphal Quixote in some ways represents
rejuvenation, because Don Quixote will have the opportunity to roam free once again.
This is why it is representative of carnival laughter. Iffland observes that the spirit of
carnival holds the possibility of a continuation, as part of its process of life-death-rebirth.
This is in direct contrast to Cervantes’s definitive ending, where Don Quixote dies and
automatically negates any possibility of a continuation. Alain René Le Sage, the
eighteenth-century writer who liberally translated Avellaneda’s novel to French, changed
Avellaneda’s ending and had Don Quixote die after a fight with the Santa Hermandad.
16
Here the narrator, in imitating the mannerisms of troubadours and other story tellers, adds ambiguity to
his narrative. This is something Cervantes’s narrator also does, such as in Part I, chapter 2: “Autores hay
que dicen que la primera aventura que le avino fue la del Puerto Lápice; otros dicen que la de los molinos
de viento; pero, lo que yo he podido averiguar en este caso, y lo que he hallado escrito en los Anales de la
Mancha . . .” (107).
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This, or the confinement of the insane asylum, would have been the logical conclusion to
a text that so repressed its protagonists. Avellaneda, however, has chosen an open ending,
which undermines the stagnant, repressive laughter that had overwhelmed the rest of the
text. Iffland believes that “la obra de Avellaneda sólo se puede entender como una
reacción contra la dimensión profundamente carnavalesca del Quijote de 1605” (62). For
the most part, I agree with this statement. But the conclusions of the two texts
nevertheless go against the overriding tones of their respective works. Taking into
consideration the disposition and direction of both novels, it is as if Cervantes and
Avellaneda swapped endings. Salvador Fajardo, in “Closure in Don Quixote I,” points
out, “In a novel that seeks to highlight the unreliability of many traditional forms of
authority, . . . the decision to end seems especially vulnerable to ironic treatment” (43).
Ironic, because the ending opposes the direction of Cervantes’s text up until this point,
where the protagonists have been free to journey, seek adventure, and otherwise
overcome boundaries.
Due to his defeat by the Knight of the White Moon in Barcelona, Don Quixote
agrees to a year of rest at home, thus circumventing any type of journey during this time,
which is an immobilization that leads to his death. In contrasting the tones and overall
intent of the two Quixotes, Nabokov would have preferred to see the two protagonists
duke it out rather than have Don Quixote lose to Sansón Carrasco:
All along [Part II] we have been meeting people who were personally acquainted
with the false Don Quixote. We are as ready for the appearance of the false Don
Quixote as we are for that of Dulcinea. We are eager for Avellaneda to produce
his man. How splendid it would have been if instead of that hasty and vague last
encounter with the disguised Carrasco, who tumbles our knight in a jiffy, the real
Don Quixote had fought his crucial battle with the false Don Quixote! In that
imagined battle who would have been victor—the fantastic, lovable madman of
genius, or the fraud, the symbol of robust mediocrity? My money is on
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Avellaneda’s man, because the beauty of it is that, in life, mediocrity is more
fortunate than genius. In life it is the fraud that unhorses true valor. (81)
Nabokov’s cynical interpretation highlights the discrepancy between these two Quixotes
and at the same time summarizes the temperament of both narratives. Ironically, these
two figures seem to swap places in the last chapter of each other’s novels. In looking at
the overriding carnival laughter in Cervantes’s novel and the almost complete lack
thereof in Avellaneda’s, the endings of their text clash with the rest of the storyline. I
explained in an earlier chapter that Cervantes’s allows Don Quixote to die as a way of
personifying the carnivalesque notion that stagnation is death. Avellaneda’s ending,
however, defies the message of the rest of his text. The ending and the character of
Sancho serve as the two main representations of carnival laughter in Avellaneda’s text,
even though they are out of sync with the rest of the story.
José Antonio Millán, in his prologue to the Poliedro edition of Avellaneda’s
novel, comments that the apocryphal text is
una obra . . . respetuosa con la de Cervantes. Respetuosa porque es perfectamente
coherente con el hilo argumental de la primera entrega, y hace un buen ejercicio
de continuación. . . . Si un improbable hallazgo documental demostrara que Lope
(o un partidario suyo) había encontrado ya escrita una continuación del Quijote,
sin especial animus iniuriandi contra Cervantes, y se había limitado a ponerle un
prólogo y a hacer una interpolación menor, nos lo creeríamos inmediatamente. . . .
La sutura de la obra avellanedesca con la Primera parte . . . es un constante. (xxxxi)
In this chapter, however, I hope to have proven the opposite: that there are several factors
that change the atmosphere of each storyline, which as a result create two very different
novels. The humor found in both novels is one of the main points of difference. In order
to fully appreciate the richness of Cervantes’s masterpiece as well as the important role
humor plays in this novel’s design, it is necessary to read Avellaneda’s work. Both texts
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offer a very different vision of laughter. They use as a starting point the journey of a mad
knight and his simple squire, but since each narrative holds a dissimilar view of laughter,
the concept from which they originate divides very early on and sets them on distinct
courses of comicality. Each novel is an essential compliment to the understanding of the
other. But like a fork in the road, the humor in each novel should be understood as
stemming from the same original source and then taking two very different directions.
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CHAPTER IV
MADNESS AND LAUGHTER: INGENIOUS INTERPRETATION
Many critics have attempted to diagnose or explain Don Quixote’s madness,
while others have focused on labeling the types of humor found in Don Quixote. Looking
briefly at both of these issues below, in this chapter I examine the relationship between
madness and humor, in order to better understand Cervantes’s humanistic vision within
Don Quixote. Having analyzed in previous chapters Menippean satire, humor as journey,
and humor unique to Cervantes’s novel, my final concern in this thesis is to look at the
correlation between humor and madness, because the latter is a theme central to Don
Quixote. I begin by considering the universality of madness, a subject frequently
promoted in humanistic texts such as Praise of Folly and Gargantua and Pantagruel.
Next, I look at the types of madness Don Quixote exhibits as well as how his character is
formulated in part based on the contemporary humoral theories of Cervantes’s day.
Lastly, most of the characters in Don Quixote demonstrate some sort of foolishness,
insanity, or silliness. Because these actions fall within the wide parameters of madness, I
discuss how this reflects the humanistic idea surrounding the universality of madness and
how everyone acts madly at some point or another in their lives. All of the
aforementioned topics are addressed with regard to the multi- and uni-directional humor
found in Cervantes’s novel.
Although it should go without saying, Don Quixote is more than just a book about
a madman and his faithful squire. This description is what is often given in layman’s
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terms when Cervantes’s classic is mentioned, but anyone who has read the book knows
that this definition is oversimplified. Even though Don Quixote is regarded as the leading
mad character and Sancho Panza is labeled as the most foolish, there are many other
characters throughout the novel who act in silly or crazy ways, and almost all of their
actions take place in a humorous context. While not all of the laughter-provoking scenes
are at the direct expense of madness, the underlying current of comicality is interlaced
with the follies, mad antics, and otherwise nonsensical actions of most of the characters
that appear throughout the text. From the extradiegetic angle, for example, the intentional
ramblings and uncertainty provided by the historian Cide Hamete, the translator, and any
of the other authors mentioned offer silliness to the readers at the outermost layer. Within
the text, there are characters who disguise themselves to fool others, who cross-dress,
who create utopias away from civilization, who dare try to transcend their social status,
and who provoke chaos by testing the limits of spousal fidelity, to name just a few of the
many scenarios where characters act in what might have been deemed by seventeenthcentury Spanish standards as crazy or outlandish. The laughter celebrated in this novel
continuously offers examples of madcap antics, folly, and foolishness to the readers and
reinforces the humanistic vision that recognizes these characteristics as an integral part of
what it means to be human.
It is in Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly that the spirit of madness is so strongly
equated to being human. The madness that comes from foolishness, writes Erasmus,
“brings a great delight not only to them that are possessed with it but to those also that
behold it . . . [and] I scarce know anyone in all mankind that is wise at all hours, or has
not some tang or other of madness” (31). Not only are folly and madness, or being “out
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of one’s wits” (30), interrelated according to Erasmus, but they are integral characteristics
of what it means to be human and they are also representative of the comic element of
life. In History of Madness, Foucault points out that for Humanists such as Erasmus
madness serves as “the comic punishment of knowledge and its ignorant presumption”
(23). Rather than celebrate only the rational aspects of the mind, society should embrace
as a part of humanity the less serious or dignified facets as well. Through literature such
as The Praise of Folly and Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, society is reminded to
do this via laughter. Foucault observes that “madness . . . is in fact a subtle relationship
that man has with himself” (History 23). In other words, madness forms a part of the
human psyche. To ignore this side of human nature, or to shun or marginalize it, would
be unhealthy. Mikhail Bakhtin, in Rabelais and His World, writes that madness and
laughter are intertwined in carnivalesque humor, and that this is the same type of humor
found in Don Quixote. Cervantes’s knight errant is similar in some ways to a jester, who
can make the court laugh at and with him at the same time, although he is not always
aware of his role. P. E. Russell, in “The Madness of Don Quixote,” clarifies, “Madness
portrayed as a comical condition and laughter nearly always elbowing out compassion are
the features of Don Quixote that many modern readers find it difficult to accept. It is
important to realize, however, that this kind of problem did not trouble readers during the
first century and a half of the book’s existence” (85). The relationship between laughter
and what were deemed to be foolish or insane actions and individuals reflected both the
nature of laughing at and laughing with the subject. It is a relationship very similar to that
of the institution of Carnival, where fools and madmen take turns with those that are
considered to be wise or sane in crowning and de-crowning one another. Everyone
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collaborates in the foray. The fluctuation and inversion of social hierarchies during
Carnival emphasizes that we as humans are equals in this game of life. Bakhtin adds,
“The carnivalesque basic element in Cervantes’s Don Quixote . . . is quite obvious: his
novel is directly organized as a grotesque play with all its attributes” (Rabelais 275). The
grotesqueness Bakhtin mentions refers to the physical attributes of being human, which
would include highlighting universal actions such as eating, drinking, defecating, dying,
and any of the activities that could be interpreted as celebrating the meaning of the body
and how it undergoes transformation throughout life. Madness is definitely a principle
corporal action, because it affects everyone physically in some way and because it creates
an alteration within individuals regarding how they interact with themselves as well as
how they live in a community.
In today’s society, perhaps most people would take umbrage at being associated
with madness, but it is important to keep in mind that from an humanistic point of view,
madness formed part of the definition of humanness. Rabelais’s novels also serve as a
good example of how mad actions and foolishness intermingle with learning, war, and
other serious ventures. It is understood as a part of life. In his Pensées, Blaise Pascal
comes to phrase it in the following way: “Men are so necessarily mad that not to be mad
would amount to another form of madness” (414). Whether acting out of line, being
foolish, allowing your beliefs to oppress you, or even envisioning something that no one
else can see, everyone at some point or another experiences what could be termed a form
of madness.
Foucault explains that around the sixteenth century, the conception of madness
begins to be understood in two different ways. Initially, madness is viewed as a condition
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“that is merely there for the instruction of the wise [in the form of] an exemplary, didactic
odyssey whose purpose is to highlight faults in the human character” (History 26). The
second understanding, however, sees madness as a dangerous menace to society because
it is deemed to encourage sloth and vagrancy rather than productivity. It is this image
which eventually takes precedence during the Enlightenment. But the initial, didactic
vision of madness that Foucault mentions is that which encompasses the humanistic
definition and which surfaces in Don Quixote. Erasmus, speaking as Folly, also refers to
this type of madness in comparison to a second, more destructive kind:
the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell, as often as they let
loose their snakes and put into men's breasts either the desire of war, or an
insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest love, or parricide, or incest, or
sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when they terrify some guilty soul with the
conscience of his crimes; the other, but nothing like this, that which comes from
me and is of all other things the most desirable; which happens as often as some
pleasing dotage not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares but renders it
more jocund. (30)
For Erasmus, there exists a vicious as well as a creative lunacy. The latter serves as a
mirror and reflects back to the observer their own traits of foolishness and insanity. It
reminds people not to take life too seriously. This is also the role of many of the
characters deemed mad or eccentric in Renaissance literature. Elizabeth Chesney, in “The
Theme of Folly in Rabelais and Ariosto,” contends,
If, from an Olympian viewpoint, all men are fools, however, such is not the case
within society. There, rational order has been imposed upon chaos, and folly
made exception to the “reasonable” rule. The duality of this perspective—which
balances the intrasocial, partitive definition of madness against its universal,
extrasocial double—is particularly important in the area of character
development, and to the understanding of the demented figures around whom the
works revolve. Not only comic devices, used to titillate our sane superiority, here
fools also serve now to satirize, now parody, those established dementias which
frequently pass for “normality.” (75)
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This duality of madness, where the madman or jester serves to highlight the insanity or
illogicality of supported forms of insanity such as war, social hierarchies, or extreme
religious beliefs, offer the readers or audience a new way to examine their culture.
Because these works tend to be of a comic nature, they are not found to be as offensive
and therefore are more successful at exposing the flaws of a culture or ideology. The
works of Erasmus, Rabelais, and Ariosto, for instance, share in common the desire to
show that there is a truth beyond reason, and that reason and its quest to control unreason is equally chaos-forming and ludicrous. Don Quixote follows in this tradition. To
begin with, madness is not marginalized but rather remains at the center of attention and
affects just about every character in the plot. In addition, Cervantes plays with the
boundaries between sanity and lunacy and between dreams and obsession, allowing most
of his characters to fluctuate between these tendencies in some way or another, showing
that even those who hold positions of power within a society, such as the curate, the Duke
and Duchess, and Don Antonio Moreno, are subject to whimsy and other forms of
irrationality.
Looking at the basic structure of the plot, Cervantes pits a character who dares to
live out his vision together with a simple squire, against other characters representing
mainstream society who, in attempting to control the madman, go to such lengths at times
that they themselves appear mad. Cervantes humorously prods the readers into
questioning where the boundaries lay between rationality and irrationality, between fact
and fantasy, and between truth and fiction. All of this is directly related to the type of
humor found in this text. It is a humor that does not satirize or put down its subject, but
rather playfully focuses light on particular issues and encourages both laughter of and
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with the subject. Bakhtin believes that this type of laughter was reflective of a kind of
attitude held during the Renaissance, but which began to disappear as the age of the
Enlightenment drew near. He writes, “Rabelais, Cervantes, and Shakespeare represent an
important turning point in the history of laughter. Nowhere else do we see so clearly
marked the lines dividing the Renaissance from the seventeenth century and the period
that followed” (Rabelais 66). This type of humor naturally affects the construction of
madness in Don Quixote and prevents it from being derisive or debilitating, something
that latter day critics such as Nabokov and Unamuno were unable to see or chose to
interpret in a very different manner. Bakhtin continues,
The Renaissance conception of laughter can be roughly described as follows:
Laughter has a deep philosophical meaning, it is one of the essential forms of the
truth concerning the world as a whole, concerning history and man; it is a peculiar
point of view relative to the world; the world is seen anew, no less (and perhaps
more) profoundly than when seen from the serious standpoint. . . . Certain
essential aspects of the world are accessible only to laughter. (Rabelais 66)
For Bakhtin, the humor encouraged during the Renaissance was universal in scope and
non-divisive. It was multidirectional in that rather than dominating a subject through
degrading laughter, its focus incorporated every participant. In Don Quixote, a good
example of this occurs in the fulling mills episode in Part I, chapter 20. Don Quixote and
Sancho are traveling along in the early evening in search of water when they hear the
sound of a river close by. Before they can fully rejoice, however, suddenly loud thumping
noises accompanied by what sounds like the creaking of chains reach their ears. The
narrator amplifies the level of suspense by adding, “de manera que la soledad, el sitio, la
escuridad, el ruido del agua con el susurro de las hojas, todo causaba horror y espanto, y
más cuando vieron que ni los golpes cesaban, ni el viento dormía, ni la mañana llegaba”
(246). Night has fallen, adding to the feeling of imminent danger, and then the two
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protagonists spend the hours of darkness with the courageous Don Quixote attempting to
investigate this new adventure and the fearful Sancho insistent on forestalling any
separation between him and his master. The readers are entertained by Sancho’s antics,
but because they are not provided with any extra information by the narrator, they are
equally caught up in the suspense. Dawn arrives and Don Quixote bids Sancho farewell
and gives him a list of things to do should he never return. Sancho breaks into tears, Don
Quixote goes off to confront whatever is making the incredible noise, and Sancho follows
close behind. At the most climactic moment, just when the protagonists are to come face
to face with the source of the noise, the narrator interrupts to tell the reader what he may
already suspect, that they are nothing more than six hammers of a fulling mill beating the
water. The knight’s and squire’s reactions break the tension:
Cuando don Quijote vio lo que era, enmudeció y pasmóse de arriba abajo. Miróle
Sancho, y vio que tenía la cabeza inclinada sobre el pecho, con muestras de estar
corrido. Miró también don Quijote a Sancho, y viole que tenía los carrillos
hinchados y la boca llena de risa, con evidentes señales de querer reventar con
ella, y no pudo su melanconía tanto con él que, a la vista de Sancho, pudiese dejar
de reírse; y, como vio Sancho que su amo había comenzado, soltó la presa de
manera que tuvo necesidad de apretarse las ijadas con los puños, por no reventar
riendo. (254)
This is a contagious laughter, which catches by surprise not only Don Quixote and
Sancho, but also the readers. The suspense and expectation of a possibly dangerous
encounter gives way to something completely unexpected. Because every participant,
including the readers, is taken in by the surprise, everyone has the opportunity to laugh at
themselves and at each other’s foolishness. This is one of the many examples of the
multidirectional laughter that surfaces in Don Quixote and it is a laughter that arises from
foolishness.
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Madness, too, can be multidirectional, in that it can affect more than one
individual. It has the possibility of also holding a deep philosophical meaning, as does
laughter, if it serves as a door that opens on to new worlds or experiences. The labels of
madness, or to be mad, are often interchangeable with words such as folly, absurdity,
violent rage, or foolishness, amongst other things. It is used as a blanket term or it can
refer to a specific act, but like the term ‘humorous,’ it is always a subjective label. The
1611 Covarrubias Tesoro de la lengva castellana o española offers the following
definition of locura: “insania, dementia . . . loquear, hazer locuras, o burlarse, y holgarse
descompuestamente” (527). It is interesting to note that this definition takes into account
not only the mental state of an individual but also includes doing crazy things, making
fun of someone else, and having too much fun. Likewise, Don Quixote serves as a
catalogue of absurdities, follies, and many other different representations of madness.
The most obvious example is that of the ingenious gentleman of La Mancha, who
embodied madness both through his idealism and through his physical appearance.
Foucault points out that a change begins to take place around the 1600s regarding
how society understood the cause of madness. During the Middle Ages, it was viewed in
connection with the possession of evil spirits. By the seventeenth century, however,
madness begins to be understood as a physiological phenomenon related to the
intermixing of the four humors within the body. Daniel Heiple, in “Renaissance Medical
Psychology in Don Quijote,” believes that Cervantes had a particular interest in
medicine: “Criticizing the chivalric novel for its lack of realism, Cervantes set out to
correct such abuses and he based his hero’s madness and actions on the firmest scientific
knowledge that was known” (70). In fashioning his hidalgo, Cervantes followed the
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humoral theories that were in circulation at the time, gleaning his information from the
leading proponent of humoral psychology in Spain, Juan Huarte de San Juan. His book,
Examen de ingenios para las ciencias, would have been accessible to Cervantes, possibly
through either his father, a surgeon, or his sister Andrea, a nurse. Heiple confirms that the
ideas contained here “must have been familiar to Cervantes from childhood” (67).
Published several times between 1575 and 1594 in Spain, Examen de ingenios was a very
influential book. Within several decades of its initial publication, it was translated into
Latin, French, Italian, English, and German. In it, Huarte posited that the four opposing
factors of heat, coldness, moisture, and dryness combined to have different effects on the
body. If a body was overly cold and moist, then an excess of phlegm was made, leading
to lethargy. If a body was too cold and dry, black bile was overproduced, and this caused
melancholy. A body that was excessively hot and moist created too much blood, which
lead to ignorance. Lastly, a body that was too hot and dry produced too much yellow bile,
giving way to a choleric temperament. For Huarte, the element of dryness was what lead
to madness. Where a body was consistently overly dry and hot, the person would
experience acts of violent insanity. If the body was generally too dry and cold, then the
person suffered from extreme sadness and despair.
In addition to his classification of these four personality types, Huarte also
mentions the ingeniosos, or those individuals who are ideal learners of a calm and
tranquil nature who only rarely vacillate between choleric and melancholic
temperaments. This is similar to Covarrubias’s definition of ingenioso, or “el que tiene
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sutil y delgado ingenio” (504), which comes from the word ingenio.17 Several critics,
including Carroll Johnson in Madness and Lust, cite Cervantes’s word choice of ‘el
ingenioso hidalgo’ as proof of a direct influence by Huarte on the novelist’s description
of Don Quixote. Heiple, in “El licenciado Vidriera y el humor tradicional del loco,” also
points out that there existed a traditional Spanish saying, “‘No hay gran ingenio sin su
ramo de locura’” (70), which may or may not be directly the result of Huarte’s influence
on society, but which also may have been what Cervantes had in mind when he named
his knight.
With regard to his usage of the term ingenioso, Huarte defines a man of this
nature in the following way: “el que fuere más disciplinable e ingenioso nace de tener el
celebro más bien templado; y si por alguna ocasión o enfermedad se le alterase el buen
temperamento del celebro, perdería luego la prudencia y habilidad” (89). In the first
chapter of Don Quixote, the narrator begins by describing Alonso Quijano as an ordinary
hidalgo somewhere in his fifties who rarely did anything unusual. But upon becoming
obsessed with books of chivalry, the hidalgo holes himself up in his library where he does
nothing but read day in and day out: “él se enfrascó tanto en su lectura, que se le pasaban
las noches leyendo de claro en claro, y los días de turbio en turbio; y así, del poco dormir
y del mucho leer se le secó el celebro de manera que vino a perder el juicio” (100).
Huarte mentions at one point the ill effects of not allowing the brain to regain its moisture
through sleep and notes that wakefulness unchecked dries out and hardens the brain
(105). This obsession of Alonso Quijano not only dries out his mind and alters his
temperament, but adds too much heat to his body. Making a connection between the
17
“vulgarmente llamamos ingenio vna fuerça natural de entendimiento inuestigadora de lo que por razon y
discurso se puede alcançar en todo genero de ciencias, disciplinas, artes liberales, y mecanicas, sutilezas,
inuenciones, y engaños” (504).
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mental side of the individual and his physical attributes, Huarte notes, “el hombre que es
caliente y seco . . . tiene muy pocas carnes, duras y ásperas, hechas de nervios y
murecillos, y las venas muy anchas” (257). In chapter 43 of the first part of Don Quixote,
when Maritornes asks for the knight to place his hand through the barred window, he
does so while describing his hand in the following manner, “No os la doy para que la
beséis, sino para que miréis la contestura de sus nervios, la trabazón de sus músculos, la
anchura y espaciosidad de sus venas” (517). His description of his hand parallels that of
Huarte and reflects how his physique resembles that of a choleric man.
At another point in his book, Huarte discusses how fasting, prayer and meditation,
and sleeping, if at all, on the ground and fully dressed, make a man “flaco y amarillo”
because all of these actions cool and dry out the body, making it less choleric and more
melancholic (70-72). These are some of the principle actions of knights errant mentioned
in chivalric romances when they, curiously enough, are undergoing penance and are
suffering from melancholy. Amadís de Gaula, for instance, acts this way when
performing his penance in Peña Pobre for Oriana. In attempting to imitate Amadís and
other knights he has read about, Don Quixote inadvertently would be cooling off his
cholera, which would affect his temperament according to Huarte. This description
coincides with the narrator’s in the initial chapter of the novel, who describes Alonso
Quijano as “de complexión recia, seco de carnes, enjuto de rostro” (98). Adding to this
preliminary image, the hidalgo is described as ‘flaco,’ ‘seco,’ and ‘amarillo’ several times
throughout the novel.18 He is also frequently warding off sleep, keeping vigil, and fasting,
which according to Huarte, would only encourage this type of complexion.
18
“le había hallado desnudo en camisa, flaco, amarillo y muerto de hambre” (I:29); “la estraña presencia de
don Quijote, viendo su rostro de media legua de andadura, seco y amarillo, la desigualdad de sus armas y
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Huarte claims that “los que tienen mucho calor son hombres de grande
imaginativa” and that they frequently become great leaders, due to their ability to inspire
others (161). Don Quixote clearly suffers from an over-active imagination and while he is
only able to inspire Sancho to officially follow him, the curate, barber, and Sansón
Carrasco choose to also pursue him, if only under the guise of attempting to cure his
illness. Interestingly enough, Huarte explains how a person of a hot, dry temperament can
oscillate between being at times articulate and at others only reactionary: “Los coléricos,
estando en paz, aciertan muy bien a hablar por tener entonces el punto de calor que ha
menester la lengua y la buena imaginativa; pero, enojados, sube el calor más de lo que
conviene y desbarata la imaginativa” (157). This would help to explain how Don Quixote
could wax poetic one moment and then react so insanely the next. On a related note,
Heiple interprets the success of Don Quixote’s two most lucid and well-articulated
speeches, when he talks about the Golden Age (I: 11) and when he delivers the discourse
on arms and letters (I: 38), as having to do with the humoral practices of blood letting and
sleep. Heiple explains, “Before the first discourse, [Don Quixote] had lost half his ear in
battle with the Viscayan [sic] and spent the afternoon bleeding from the head”
(“Renaissance” 69). Patients were frequently bled when they showed signs of having an
excess of a particular humor. Due to Don Quixote’s blood loss, his humors would have
balanced out, which in turn would allow him to be more eloquent when speaking.
Likewise, before his lecture about arms and letters, Don Quixote had just awoken from
the nap in which he had fought with the wineskins. Because it was culturally understood
su mesurado continente” (I:27); “venía flaco y amarillo” (I:52); “venía tal el triste, que no le conociera la
madre que le parió: flaco, amarillo, los ojos hundidos en los últimos camaranchones del celebro” (II: 7); “le
vio tan alto y tan amarillo” (II: 48); “Era cosa de ver la figura de don Quijote, largo, tendido, flaco,
amarillo, estrecho en el vestido, desairado, y, sobre todo, no nada ligero” (II: 62).
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that sleep re-moisturized the brain, Heiple posits that this would explain his ability to
articulate himself so well. Heiple surmises, “Clearly Cervantes meant to show both the
bleeding, a removal of the damaging humors, and the long sleep, a restoration of the
humidity, as predispositions for a return to rationality” (“Renaissance” 69-70). Cervantes
described the actions of his knight according to the medical theories of his day, which
includes the work of Huarte de San Juan.
Carroll Johnson, in discussing the end of Part II, links Don Quixote’s death to his
temperament. He believes that at the end of the novel, Don Quixote arrives at his home
after suffering cruel disillusionments and humiliations “which have the effect of
dissipating his yellow bile (choler) and replacing what is lost with black bile
(melancholy). This, aided by the sleep that restores moisture to his dried-out brain,
swings his personality from the pathologically choleric to its opposite, the melancholic.
This in turn results in his death, because melancholy . . . has the unfortunate side effect of
constricting his heart” (194). Don Quixote’s very aspect as well as his emotional
fluctuation from choleric to melancholic, therefore, would help explain to the
knowledgeable readers of Cervantes’s day how he could produce actions and speech
reflecting both madness and sharpness of mind.
On a related note, although Huarte lauds the ingenioso for being the most wellbalanced individual, he nonetheless esteems the choleric and melancholic personality
types, because “destos nace la prudencia y sabiduría que tienen los hombres” (118). He
recognizes that those individuals who suffer these humoral imbalances nonetheless are
necessary to a society, because only melancholic individuals have the correct disposition
that favors understanding and wisdom and only those who fall into the choleric category
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are capable of great imagination and leadership, which in turn lead to advances in a
civilization. Huarte’s understanding of the value of unbalanced or unstable individuals to
their society coincides with the humanistic vision of relishing madness and folly.
When discussing the art of leadership, Huarte mentions that those of a hot
temperament generally hold a talent for eloquent speech, stating that “la oratoria es una
ciencia que nace de cierto punto de calor” (91). He then goes on to discuss a case of a
simple page who, due to an illness, began to say the most amazing things. “El cual
[maníaco] era tenido en sanidad por mozo de poco ingenio; pero caído en la enfermedad,
eran tantas las gracias que decía, los apodos, las respuestas que daba a lo que le
preguntaban, las trazas que fingía para gobernar un reino del cual se tenía por señor, que
por maravilla le venían gentes a ver y oír, y el propio señor jamás se quitaba de la
cabecera rogando a Dios que no sanase” (91-92). In many ways, this anecdote parallels
the experience Alonso Quijano undergoes. He dries out his brain by reading too much,
which spurs him into becoming a knight errant and acting on his visions. And his
colleagues and friends, under the guise of helping him return to sanity, follow Don
Quixote on his adventures and often provoke him into reacting, so that they can enjoy his
follies all the more.
We also see mirrored in Huarte’s anecdote Don Quixote’s desire to rein so that he
can “cobrase eterno nombre y fama” (101). Huarte explains, “El colérico, según la
irascible, adora en la honra, en la vanagloria, imperio y mando, y ser a todos superior”
(29). Similar to the simple page who, through a fever, envisions himself as king, Don
Quixote also shares in visions of vainglory. Huarte’s anecdote ends with the doctor, who
is finally able to cure the page:
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Librado el paje de esta enfermedad, se fue el médico que le curaba a despedir del
señor, con ánimo de recibir algún galardón o buenas palabras; pero él le dijo de
esta manera: “Yo os doy mi palabra, señor doctor, que de ningún mal suceso he
recibido jamás tanta pena, como de ver a este paje sano; porque tan avisada locura
no era razón trocarla por un juicio tan torpe como a éste le queda en sanidad.
Paréceme que de cuerdo y avisado lo habéis tornado necio, que es la mayor
mísera que a un hombre puede acontecer.” (92)
The lord’s response is very similar to the reply in Part II, chapter 65 that Don Antonio
gives to Sansón Carrasco, who as the Knight of the White Moon has just defeated Don
Quixote and is forcing him to return home for a year so as to cure his madness:
-¡Oh señor -dijo don Antonio-, Dios os perdone el agravio que habéis hecho a
todo el mundo en querer volver cuerdo al más gracioso loco que hay en él! ¿No
veis, señor, que no podrá llegar el provecho que cause la cordura de don Quijote a
lo que llega el gusto que da con sus desvaríos? (522)
While it may seem to modern day readers that Don Antonio only wishes to continue
enjoying the spectacles made at Don Quixote’s expense, from his point of view he is not
harming Don Quixote but rather allowing him to be the unique individual he has become
thanks to his madness. For Don Antonio, if Don Quixote returns home and is cured, not
only is the world deprived of his great character, but Don Quixote also misses out on any
new and exciting adventures, returning instead to his dull way of life and a personality
that is so nondescript that not even the narrator remembers where exactly he is from or
what his real last name is.
Up until this point, I have discussed what might have influenced Cervantes’s
understanding of madness and how this is played out in his construction of Don Quixote.
There are many critics who have attempted to categorize the knight’s madness according
to modern-day psychology. Although this type of analysis is anachronistic and also
dangerous, because it focuses on a character instead of on an actual human being, I
mention some of the more contrastive cases to show the wide range of categories of
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madness by which Don Quixote has been defined. In “Un aspecto en la elaboración del
Quijote,” Ramón Menéndez Pidal, for instance, sees the knight errant as suffering from
monomania. Miguel de Unamuno, however, discusses what afflicts Don Quixote in “The
Essence of Quixotism” and states, “the essence of his madness is that which . . . I call
‘herostratism,’ the mad craving for immortality which, should we doubt of living on in
spirit, makes us long to leave behind at least our eternal name and fame” (356). Ruth El
Saffar considers the knight errant to be delusional. Carroll Johnson thinks Don Quixote is
sexually repressed and that this is what leads to his lunacy. At the other end of the
spectrum, Giovanni Papini and Vladmir Nabokov believe that the knight is only faking
his madness. Likewise, Mark Van Doren and Gonzalo Torrente Ballester judge that Don
Quixote is merely acting. It seems to me that some of the critics’ interpretations are more
autobiographical in nature, reflecting how they relate to the protagonist, which ironically
would fit with how Cervantes plays with reality and fantasy or truth and interpretation
within his novel. This does not invalidate their interpretations in any way but rather
emphasizes Cervantes’s gift for fashioning a figure that allows so many readers to relate
to him.
Don Quixote’s madness is representative of his own personality. At the same
time, because many readers can relate to him, they in turn interpret his madness many
different ways. Even in using only Huarte’s definitions of the personality types, we find
that Don Quixote oscillates between phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic throughout
the storyline. This ambiguity regarding cataloguing the knight errant’s madness should
not be read as erroneous or as an inconsistency on Cervantes’s part. Cervantes has
modeled his characters not on theater types but rather on human attributes, which is why
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they are often perceived to be authentic and believable. Because his characters are so
well-rounded, they are similar to human beings in that they, too, are difficult to classify.
Avellaneda’s Don Quixote does fit the standard description of a maniac and never goes
beyond the boundaries of a theatrical caricature. Cervantes’s knight, however, does not
correspond to just one prescribed mold. He is both mad and sane, choleric and
melancholic, rash and prudent, foolish and wise. Although some critics, such as Le Sage
or Nabokov, read this versatility as amateurism or as inaccurateness on the part of
Cervantes, in my opinion they seem to have missed how Cervantes appeared more
inclined to construct his characters so that they held more humanistic qualities and
therefore were more than just caricatures. Don Quixote, as the cuerdo loco, is
alternatingly sensible, angry, foolish, passionate, judicious, and delusional. Stemming
from the humanistic undercurrent that runs through the novel, it is natural that he be at
times mad and at others sane.
The universal scope of madness that Erasmus highlights so clearly in The Praise
of Folly, under which fall acts of madness, foolishness, or silliness, is ever-present in
Cervantes’s novel and not only with regard to Don Quixote. As Heiple points out,
Las obras satíricas que trataban de la locura en los siglos XVI y XVII parten de
dos tradiciones que tenían hondas raíces bíblicas y clásicas. Según la primera,
todo el mundo está loco, una idea que siempre se resumía con el dicho bíblico:
"El número de los locos es infinito" (Eclesiastés, I:15). La segunda es el concepto
del loco cuerdo, el que parece ser loco, pero se aprovecha de su inocencia
aparente para ridiculizar a los que se creen cuerdos. (“Licenciado” 17)
Heiple claims that Don Quixote is the first work to incorporate both types of madness.
The majority of the characters who play a substantial role in the plot take part in actions
that reflect aspects of folly, absurdity, or even insanity. I have already mentioned Don
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Quixote, but it is important to take into consideration at least the more prominent
examples of madness in the other characters.
Sancho Panza is one such character. He is originally depicted by the narrator in
Part I, chapter 7 as an “hombre de bien—si es que este título se puede dar al que es
pobre—pero de muy poca sal en la mollera” (142). Following Huarte’s guidelines,
Sancho would probably fall under the phlegmatic profile, because “el flemático estima
más hartarse de dormir que todos los señoríos del mundo” (29) and who also generally
has a bad memory (104), which would explain why Sancho rarely gets his proverbs and
sayings exactly right. But this understanding of Sancho, however, collides dramatically
with his actions in Part II as Governor of Barataria, where he doles out judgments that
rival the wisdom of King Solomon. If the readers accept that Sancho is in fact wise at
least in the area of common sense, which they must after seeing how he judges his cases,
then it becomes difficult to accept Sancho’s initial decision to give up both his sustenance
as laborer and his family in order to become the squire of someone whose sanity he is
already questioning by the adventure with the flocks of sheep in Part I, chapter 18.
Giovanni Papini, in Four and Twenty Minds, offers an interesting interpretation on
Sancho’s mentality:
Nor can Sancho Panza be fairly regarded as the representative of common sense
and materialism. Sancho has more actual belief than Don Quixote. Don Quixote
believes (or professes to believe) in the olden cavaliers; but Sancho believes in
Don Quixote, and that is a much more difficult faith. Sancho finds in his
increasing veneration for his master a terrestrial ideal far removed from his sure
possessions. He dreams a dream; and when—in his island—his dream becomes
true he reveals himself more enamored of justice than of gain. In short, the only
real madman in the book is Sancho. (263)
Papini interprets Sancho to be crazy because he willingly follows around a madman and
also because he does not use his position as governor for economic gain, which is what
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he initially states he will do. This assessment, especially the latter part, seems to speak
more about Papini than about Sancho’s mental state. Nevertheless, it is true that Sancho
suffers from the same delusions of grandeur that his master does, in that he allows
himself to believe that he can and will ascend from his social position of laborer to that of
squire and then governor. In addition, it is also one thing for an idiot to follow around a
madman, but it is quite another for someone with the common sense and imagination that
Sancho sometimes exhibits to readily believe the dreams of someone he is not entirely
sure has his wits about him. Sancho even declares to himself, in Part II, chapter 10, “Este
mi amo, por mil señales, he visto que es un loco de atar, y aun también yo no le quedo en
zaga, pues soy más mentecato que él, pues le sigo y le sirvo, si es verdad el refrán que
dice: ‘Dime con quién andas, decirte he quién eres’” (94-95). Like two birds of the same
feather, Sancho is very similar to his master in that he fluctuates between contrastive
qualities, too. P. E. Russell believes that this forms part of Cervantes’s technique of
pairing the two main protagonists. He writes that with “the alternation of foolish credulity
and astute scepticism . . . Sancho mirrors his master’s alternation between insane
hallucinations and ‘lucid intervals’” (79). Throughout the novel, Sancho can be levelheaded as well as unstable, acting at times prudently, unwisely, circumspectly, and
rashly. Although this does not necessarily signify that he is thoroughly mad, it does
substantiate the idea that there is at least a little bit of insanity or foolishness in
everybody.
Sansón Carrasco appears in the second part of the novel, and for many critics he
plays the role of the anti-Quixote because he goes out of his way to destroy the visions
and chimeras of Don Quixote and in the end tricks him into returning home for a year of
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solitude and confinement. Giovanni Papini, for instance, writes a rather vitriolic summary
of the bachiller’s role in the text:
La verdadera contrafigura de don Quijote, el anti-don Quijote por excelencia, es
un personaje poco estudiado por los comentadores y que, sin embargo, tiene una
parte breve pero importantísima en la obra de Cervantes: el bachiller Sansón
Carrasco. Es el tipo del sabio a medias, del hombre mediocre, ni perfectamente
ignorante como Sancho, ni perfectamente iluminado como don Quijote, el cual, en
su pasión por la sabiduría común, quiere a toda costa rendir y desenmascarar la
locura de don Quijote. Él no tiene ni la fe del carbonero ni la fe del santo: no
conoce sino el buen sentido; y para reducir la feliz vehemencia de don Quijote a
la melancolía desilusionada del buen sentido, recurre a todos los expedientes: se
disfraza de caballero errante; vence en singular combate al heroico loco, y lo
constriñe a prometerle no empuñar más ni lanza ni espada . . . Sansón Carrasco—
símbolo siempre vivo de la pequeña burguesía, medio instruida, enemiga de toda
audacia, es la verdadera contraposición y el verdadero asesino del alma y del
cuerpo del inmortal don Quijote. Él, y no Sancho, representa la contradicción y el
mentís al valeroso e infortunado buscador de aventuras; y todos los locos, todos
los idealistas, todos los héroes, todos los mártires del mundo deben execrar en el
nombre de Sansón Carrasco a quienes levanten las rejas de la prudencia contra los
vuelos del ensueño y del genio. (Retratos 17-18)
Although he would appear to represent one of the rational or logical figures in the text
because of his education and his outspoken desire to help Don Quixote, two of his actions
in particular bespeak a certain degree of irrationality if not madness.
To begin with, the text states that he is a recently-graduated bachiller, which
implies that he is intelligent. Nonetheless, he decides to take up after Don Quixote and
Sancho, disguising himself on two separate occasions as a knight and challenging Don
Quixote to a joust. Perhaps the first instance when Sansón is dressed up as the Knight of
the Mirrors in chapter 12, could be chalked up to mere folly. He is, after all, a bit of a
jokester. The narrator describes him as a “muy gran socarrón, . . . pero de muy buen
entendimiento . . . de nariz chata y de boca grande, señales todas de ser de condición
maliciosa y amigo de donaires y de burlas” (46). But when he is toppled by Don Quixote
in chapter 15, his reaction is anything but joking or benign. Tomé Cecial, his “squire,”
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even comments to the effect that they both are at least as foolish as Don Quixote, stating,
“Don Quijote loco, nosotros cuerdos: él se va sano y riendo, vuesa merced queda molido
y triste. Sepamos, pues, ahora, cuál es más loco: ¿el que lo es por no poder menos, o el
que lo es por su voluntad?” (134). Sansón, however, clarifies the difference between his
and Don Quixote’s follies. He replies, “La diferencia que hay entre esos dos locos es que
el que lo es por fuerza lo será siempre, y el que lo es de grado lo dejará de ser cuando
quisiere” (134). He believes his foolishness is controllable, but he does not seem to be in
control of himself when he responds in his very next breath that he vows revenge and to
carry out his mission of defeating Don Quixote “hasta haber molido a palos a don
Quixote” (134). This no longer sounds like the actions of a level-headed, sensible
individual. Either through the inability to accept defeat or due to a driving need for
revenge, Sansón appears to be behaving unreasonably. It is also curious that he believes
he needs to avenge himself. Given the circumstances, he created this adventure and
challenged Don Quixote. Don Quixote bested him fair and square. In theory, one is not
entitled to revenge unless he or she has been wronged, which furthers the argument that
the bachiller is being unreasonable if not irrational. He is an otherwise sane character
who, by taking up an absurd venture that is unsuccessfully carried out, becomes
maddened by his failure. This turns into an unappeasable need for revenge. In the end,
Sansón comes to symbolize the first of the two madnesses of which Erasmus speaks: he
embodies the dishonest or revengeful insanity and he cannot rest until he has conquered
the folly-driven madness that Don Quixote represents.
After Sansón Carrasco, the Duke and Duchess are two other characters in the
second part who go out of their way to make sport of Don Quixote and Sancho. The
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lengths they go to in order to carry out their pranks, however, reach the fuzzy border
between frivolity and excessiveness or absurdity. The narrator even points out, in chapter
70, Cide Hamete’s observation that “tiene para sí ser tan locos los burladores como los
burlados, y que no estaban los duques dos dedos de parecer tontos, pues tanto ahínco
ponían en burlarse de dos tontos” (549). Because they work so hard at having fun at
Sancho and Don Quixote’s expense, the Duchess and Duke do come across as
unbalanced. But rather than this leveling the playing field, as with carnivalesque laughter,
the humor produced at the expense of the Duchess and Duke’s machinations reinforces
the power hierarchy. The jokes are made at the expense of Sancho and Don Quixote and
none of the antagonists are ever de-crowned, resulting in an uneven playing field and
unidirectional laughter. Altisidora, the lady-in-waiting who feigns unrequited love for the
knight errant, is the best representation of this humor dynamic. She symbolizes the
underlying boredom-turned-injuriousness that exists at the heart of her mistress and
master’s existence, something which comes into evidence when Doña Rodríguez
mentions to Don Quixote that the Duchess has “dos fuentes . . . en las dos piernas, por
donde se desagua todo el mal humor de quien dicen los médicos que está llena” (387).
This hidden illness reflects an underlying corruption. Altisidora, directly connected to the
Duchess as her lady-in-waiting, forms a part of this decadence. In addition, because the
readers are never shown any other side of her, Altisidora’s entire personality is based on
her over-exaggerated role as scorned love interest. Because her existence is fully
dependent on the presence of Don Quixote, her actions are interpreted as ridiculous if not
absurd. She would not exist without Don Quixote and only appears in the text in order to
torment him. She is like a harpy, uncontrollable and irritating. Don Quixote at one point
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comments to the Duchess, “Señora mía, sepa Vuestra Señoría que todo el mal desta
doncella nace de ociosidad, cuyo remedio es la ocupación honesta y continua. Ella me ha
dicho aquí que se usan randas en el infierno, y pues ella las debe de saber hacer, no las
deje de la mano; que ocupada en menear los palillos, no se menearán en su imaginación
la imagen o imágenes de lo que bien quiere, y ésta es la verdad, éste mi parecer y éste es
mi consejo” (552). Her lack of purpose, with the exception of baiting Don Quixote,
summarizes the entire Duke and Duchess experience in the novel, because her actions
reflect the emptiness, and hence the futility, of all of their lives. Without Don Quixote
and Sancho, they are insipid and superfluous.
At the end of the second part, Don Antonio Moreno also sees Don Quixote and
Sancho as a form of personal entertainment, but in a slightly different way than the Duke
and Duchess. As the narrator explains in chapter 62, Don Antonio is a “caballero rico y
discreto, y amigo de holgarse a lo honesto y afable, el cual, viendo en su casa a don
Quijote, andaba buscando modos como, sin su perjuicio, sacase a plaza sus locuras.
Porque no son burlas las que duelen, ni hay pasatiempos que valgan si son con daño de
tercero” (493). Although it might be a stretch to state that the Duke and Duchess reveled
in tormenting their guests, their idea of humor is nonetheless different from Don
Antonio’s. The spectacles at the Duchess and Duke’s take place outside of civilization,
for one, in a castle that encapsulates the experiences and retains the laughter to a
restrictive number of individuals. With Don Antonio, however, he shares the knight
errant and the squire with the city of Barcelona. When he walks with Don Quixote around
town, he is encouraging the dissemination of the knight errant’s madness to the other
passersby. The Castilian who stops and shouts for Don Quixote to return home does not
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understand this need for madness, but he is nonetheless correct in one assertion. He says,
“Tú eres loco, y si lo fueras a solas y dentro de las puertas de tu locura, fuera menos mal;
pero tienes propiedad de volver locos y mentecatos a cuantos te tratan y comunican”
(497). Madness and acts of follies are contagious and Don Quixote is the spark that has
inspired everyone else’s joie de vivre, so to speak. This is later echoed by Don Antonio in
the answer he gives to Sansón Carrasco, where he questions the benefit of erasing
harmless madness from the world in order to promote dullness and mediocrity. Don
Antonio helps celebrate Don Quixote’s insanity the same way he fools all of his guests
with the enchanted head. He is a responsible gentleman who enjoys good entertainment
and the readers note quite a bit of the folly Erasmus promoted in the lengths to which
Don Antonio goes to pull pranks on his friends and guests.
With regard to harnessing the antics of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as a form
of entertainment, the Duke, Duchess, Altisidora, and Don Antonio are the main culprits.
This theme of utilizing another as a source of diversion is truly brought to the foreground
and developed much more in depth during Part II. In the first part, this theme also
surfaces but to a much lesser degree and as a spontaneous measure rather than as a
planned out activity. The most salient example in the 1605 novel takes place in chapter
51, when the goat herder and Don Quixote get into a bloody scuffle and the curate,
barber, and canon are there as spectators egging them on. Although this type of humor
reflects aspects of carnivalesque laughter, such as the de-crowning of Don Quixote or the
mixing of blood (violence) with food (celebration), its focus is still unidirectional in that
there is a distinct division between the participants and the observers. For this reason, this
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type of spectacle would fall more closely under the lines of an abusive or degrading
humor, rather than be representative of the folly that Erasmus commemorates.
Before fully turning our attention to Part I, there is one last character from the
second part that needs to be discussed with regard to representing madness and laughter,
because his introduction in the text naturally carries with it the confusion between reality
and fiction. Don Álvaro Tarfe is a special character because he has been adopted by
Cervantes from the apocryphal second part of Don Quixote. By incorporating a fictional
character from a previous text into his novel, Cervantes is at the same time validating this
character’s existence, thereby making him more real in some ways while at the same time
maintaining his fictional status because, after all, Part II is still only a work of fiction.
Critics such as Vladmir Nabokov, Miguel de Unamuno, Cesáreo Bandera, Edward
Friedman, and Carroll Johnson have speculated over the relationship between
Cervantes’s 1605 and 1615 novels, where the fact that some of the characters in the
second part have read the first part signifies that the 1605 Don Quixote and Sancho have
become historical figures in the 1615 text, rather than strictly fictional characters. This
same ambiguity would also apply to Don Álvaro’s relationship to Cervantes’s text. Does
he become more real than the fictional character he was in Avellaneda’s version because
Cervantes has incorporated him in his own Part II? The situation is even further
complicated because Cervantes uses him as a source of reference, to refute the
differences between the apocryphal and the “real” Don Quixote. Not only is Don Álvaro
a real character from another text, but Cervantes makes him a specialist in determining
the authenticity of Don Quixote, thereby privileging him with the deciding voice over
whether the two knights errant are at all alike. This is even further backed up in chapter
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72 by the legal affidavit that Don Álvaro agrees to sign in front of the mayor (564).
Blurring the borders between fact and fiction, or real and fake characters, Cervantes adds
a tone of absurdity to his novel. The readers, stepping back from the text, are left to
ponder where the limits of fiction begin and end. The true ludicrousness, which further
enriches the humorous elements of the text, comes from Don Álvaro’s confusion, because
he himself is unsure whether to trust his senses or to trust his intuition. He states,
tengo por sin duda que los encantadores que persiguen a don Quijote el bueno han
querido perseguirme a mí con don Quijote el malo. Pero no sé qué me diga; que
osaré yo jurar que le dejo metido en la casa del Nuncio, en Toledo, para que le
curen, y agora remanece aquí otro don Quijote, aunque bien diferente del mío . . .
y vuelvo a decir y me afirmo que no he visto lo que he visto, ni ha pasado por mí
lo que ha pasado. (564)
He is certain that he left Don Quixote in the mental hospital of Toledo, but he is also
positive that this new Don Quixote is the real knight errant from Part I. Since logically
both of these things cannot be true in his mind, he chooses the only other option that he
considers to be possible, which is that of an enchanter having tricked him. This option,
too, is comical because Don Álvaro supposedly stands for reason yet chooses to believe
the fantastical possibility of a magical enchanter, who of course is a figure from chivalric
romances. The confusion of logic, facts, fiction, and characters in this episode augments
the existent comicality and reinforces the tension between madness and sanity that forms
the foundation of the novel.
In Part I, the interpolated story of El curioso impertinente also challenges the
question of sanity, but the traces of humor it reflects are more bittersweet than jovial.
Anselmo, also a metacharacter because he is a character the other characters read about,
is at the same time a metadramatist who invents a plot of his own by daring to test the
faithfulness of his virtuous wife, Camila. His initial test, however, ends up leading him to
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the borders of obsession, because he refuses to be convinced and continually concocts
new and jeopardous ways to determine whether her faithfulness is perfect or flawed.
Anselmo goes above and beyond reason in his quest and it is his own foolish obsession
that serves as the catalyst to the downfall of their marriage and, in the end, leads to his
own death. His hubristic venture serves as an example of the folly behind looking beyond
the wealth one already has and thereby overreaching one’s limits. As Anselmo finally
realizes, when it is way to late to make amends, “yo fui el fabricador de mi deshonra”
(437). Although this might appear to go against the humoristic current of the novel, it in
fact fits perfectly within the realm of madness and laughter because it serves to remind
the readers of the danger in obsessing about pride, honor, or other social decoys that not
only prevent an individual from enjoying what good fortune they already have but
become detrimental if taken too seriously.
The story of Zoraida is also one of risky ventures, depending on the reader’s
perspective. Here is a character who voluntarily undergoes separation from her family,
her religion, her culture, and her language because she wants to be a Christian and “ver a
Lela Marién,” or the Virgin Mary (479). To a cristiano viejo of Cervantes’s time, these
actions no doubt were interpreted as admirable and courageous. At the same time,
however, the underlying religious zeal the young girl has carries her into acting outside of
the norm of reasonable behavior, especially considering the troubles that await her once
she reaches Spain, where the edict banning moriscos is being enforced. To a nonreligious reader, her actions would probably fall under the category of foolish or
ludicrous. This begs the question as to whether there is anything worth going to such an
extreme. A Muslim reader would probably interpret her actions to be completely
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irrational when considering the manner in which she betrayed and then abandoned her
father, as well as sacrificed her culture and religion. In a way, she commits a form of
suicide, in that she attempts to sever herself completely from the cultural signifiers that
previously defined her. This action is highlighted in chapter 37, when she reacts
vehemently to being called Zoraida. She cries out, “¡No, no Zoraida: María, María! . . .
Zoraida macange!” (454). She rejects her previous self by rejecting her Muslim name and
asking to be called Maria. What her story reflects above all is how her actions can be
deemed courageous, foolish, or suicidal depending on the perspective of the reader. The
subtle humor that surrounds this story has less to do with making the reader laugh and
more to do with coaxing the readers’ boundaries of interpretation.
Whether there are journeys that take place at sea or on land, Don Quixote is a
novel that allows its characters to explore new spaces. With the exception of Barcelona
(II: 61-65), the spaces in which the characters interact are all located in the outskirts of
towns, in the fields and forests, or in the mountains. One of the most integral areas, where
five different characters partake in irrational or mad acts, is in the Sierra Morena. This
particular geographical location serves as a curious locus amoenus, one that invites
unusual exploits or chance happenings, as can be seen by the narrator’s comment in
chapter 23: “Así como don Quijote entró por aquellas montañas, se le alegró el corazón,
pareciéndole aquellos lugares acomodados para las aventuras que buscaba” (283). This
mountain range sets the stage for acts of folly. The first case of madness to take place in
here occurs in chapter 23, when Don Quixote and Sancho hear the story about “un muy
gentil y agraciado mancebo” (290), whom they later learn is named Cardenio. It is
interesting to note how many different ways the narrator refers to him within the first few
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pages of his introduction: he is “el desdichado loco” (291), “el Roto de la Mala Figura”
(291), the “astroso cabellero de la Sierra” (291), and finally the label for which he is best
known, “El Caballero del Bosque” (293). Although dealing with a character who by his
actions has lost his mind, the narrator establishes a tone of buoyant laughter through his
creatively humorous descriptions. The fact that all of these epithets refer to Cardenio’s
mental state as well as to his location is also important, because they reflect just how
much a part of his wild surroundings he has become due to his madness. He sleeps in the
hollow of a “grueso y valiente alcornoque” (289), his clothes are torn and ragged, and he
walks around talking to himself. Don Quixote and Sancho’s first glimpse of him reveals
his current state:
iba saltando un hombre, de risco en risco y de mata en mata, con estraña ligereza.
Figurósele que iba desnudo, la barba negra y espesa, los cabellos muchos y
abultados, los pies descalzos y las piernas sin cosa alguna; los muslos cubrían
unos calzones, al parecer, de terciopelo leonado, mas tan hechos pedazos, que por
muchas partes se le descubrían las carnes. (287)
Physically, he has become a product of his environment. He is disorderly, uncivilized,
and dangerous. The way Cervantes characterizes him, Cardenio seems to be suffering
from mania, or what the 1734 Real Academia Española describes as an “enfermedad de
la phantasía que la altera y desordena, fijandola en una especie, sin razon ni fundamento”
(478).19 Foucault explains that by the seventeenth century, Western society began to
categorize the different types of madness and that maniacs were classified as those who
“invariably live with audacity and ‘furor’” (History 269). Huarte cites that mania is “una
destemplanza caliente y seca del cerebro” (33) that is brought on by an over-active
imagination (106). Interestingly enough, these are the same mental conditions that Don
19
Neither “mania” nor “maniaco” are defined in the Covarrubias Tesoro de la lengva castellana o
española.
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Quixote shares, which might help explain why El Caballero de la Triste Figura and El
Roto de la Mala Figura embrace the way they do when they first meet:
En llegando el mancebo a ellos, les saludó con una voz desentonada y bronca,
pero con mucha cortesía. Don Quijote le volvió las saludes con no menos
comedimiento, y . . . le fue a abrazar, y le tuvo un buen espacio estrechamente
entre sus brazos, como si de luengos tiempos le hubiera conocido. El otro, . . .
después de haberse dejado abrazar, le apartó un poco de sí, y, puestas sus manos
en los hombros de don Quijote, le estuvo mirando, como que quería ver si le
conocía; no menos admirado quizá de ver la figura, talle y armas de don Quijote,
que don Quijote lo estaba de verle a él. (291)
They are brothers of the same infirmity and perhaps are capable of recognizing this in
one another.
Cardenio’s madness is short-lived, compared to the knight errant’s. In fact, as
soon as Dorotea tells him that Luscinda can still be his wife, no mention of his illness nor
spontaneous bursts of violence are seen again. He leaves his madness in the Sierra
Morena, where he found it.
The insanity of Cardenio, aside from forming an interesting part of the storyline,
is important to Don Quixote. It serves as the catalyst for the knight’s three-day imitation
of the madness of Amadís de Gaula, which is a voluntary penance that he offers to
Dulcinea to prove his love and sincerity. Don Quixote had previously heard from the
shepherd that Cardenio mentioned that he had come to the Sierra Morena “para cumplir
cierta penitencia” (289), something that Cardenio further adds to at the end of chapter 27
by explaining, “Yo no quiero salud sin Luscinda, y pues ella gustó de ser ajena, siendo, o
debiendo ser, mía, guste yo de ser de la desventura, pudiendo haber sido de la buena
dicha” (340). His love for Luscinda and what he understands to be her disdain prevent
him from any other alternative, from his point of view. He cannot take revenge against
Fernando’s betrayal because he believes that Luscinda said yes when she should have
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said no. Trapped by his love for her and the impossibility of her reciprocation of this
love, Cardenio sees no other option but the self-destructive path that has lead him to the
Sierra Morena, where he will live out his miserable life until “el cielo sea servido de
conducirle a su último fin” (340). This echoes the penance that Amadís undergoes for his
Oriana, when he changes his name to Beltenebros and retreats to Peña Pobre. This idea
immediately takes seed in Don Quixote’s already overly imaginative mind and he thereby
becomes the second character to experience madness in the Sierra Morena.
Perhaps the conscious imitation of mad acts does not constitute authentic
madness, but rather falls under the guise of folly. However, because Don Quixote is
already deemed mad before arriving at the Sierra Morena, he would still be mad in
imitating madness. He is a madman who could be judged as even madder for attempting
to imitate insanity. He tells Sancho in chapter 25, “Loco soy, loco he de ser hasta tanto
que tú vuelvas con la respuesta de una carta que contigo pienso enviar a mi señora
Dulcinea; y si fuere tal cual a mi fe se le debe, acabarse ha mi sandez y mi penitencia; y
si fuere al contrario, seré loco de veras, y, siéndolo, no sentiré nada” (304). His imitation
of madness is, in other words, a meta-madness. It is quickly resolved, nonetheless, once
Sancho returns with the (invented) news of Dulcinea’s reception of his letter.
The last three characters associated with madness in the Sierra Morena are not
crazy in the traditional sense, but rather partake in mad acts. Dorotea, for instance, ends
up in this mountain range after a succession of unfortunate and perilous events. The
daughter of a rich farmer, she believes Don Fernando’s amorous promises of marriage,
even though she knows they are from different classes. She gives in to his desires instead
of resisting him or alerting her parents to his intrusion into her room, as she probably
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could have. Dorotea is deceived and falls victim to one of the oldest tricks in the book,
and this inspires her to perform a number of unconventional and very hazardous deeds as
she seeks to reclaim her honor. In hearing that Fernando plans to marry a girl in another
town, Dorotea explains that “en lugar de helárseme el corazón en oílla, fue tanta la cólera
y rabia que se encendió en él, que faltó poco para no salirme de las calles dando voces,
publicando la alevosía y traición que se me había hecho” (352). Her anger, however,
turns to ingenuity and she devises the risky plan to disguise herself as a boy in order to
find and confront Fernando. Not only is she escaping from her house without notifying
her parents, but she is also breaking the law by dressing as the opposite sex. In
Cervantes’s time period, Dorotea’s actions would have been interpreted as mad, if only
for the dishonor that she is bringing upon her household. When she reaches the town
where she expects to find him, not only has Fernando disappeared but Dorotea learns that
the wedding never went through as planned. She decides to flee into the woods, however,
because she hears that her parents are looking for her and are offering a reward for her
discovery. The servant that had helped her up to this point now attempts to take
advantage of this situation and rape her. Here Dorotea does to the servant what she could
not, or did not want to, do to Fernando: she defends herself. She relates, “con mis pocas
fuerzas, y con poco trabajo, di con él por un derrumbadero, donde le dejé, ni sé si muerto
o vivo” (355). Now, for all she knows, Dorotea could have killed a man. Regardless of
the fact that the servant deserved this fate, or that her actions were performed in selfdefense, the act of taking someone’s life generally carries with it an alteration in
perception or understanding. It falls outside of what is normally considered to be rational
behavior or at least impacts in some way those involved in the act. Dorotea, however,
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barely mentions it and this lack of awareness or recognition on her part makes the act
seem frivolous. After the incident with her servant, rather than continue looking for
Fernando, she turns to hiding from her parents in the mountains and spends several
months working for a farmer (355). Dorotea’s initial surrender to Fernando is what has
inspired this course of irrational events, but now ironically it appears that she is more
concerned with hiding than with finding and making amends with Fernando. Dorotea’s
decisions so far have been out of the ordinary and although they do not signify that she is
mentally unstable, she is nevertheless choosing more foolish rather than prudent actions.
As another possible interpretation, because she does not appear to be in a hurry, the
Sierra Morena could be interpreted as her way out of the conflict between dishonoring
her parents and marrying someone whom she has to force into carrying out his promise.
The mountains, therefore, serve as both a mental and physical escape from her real life.
With the introduction of Cardenio into her life, Dorotea agrees to go back to
civilization and look for Fernando with his help. But when the barber and curate divulge
their plot to trick Don Quixote into returning home with them, Dorotea offers to take the
curate’s place as the Princess Micomicona, which would appear to forestall once again
her search for Fernando. However, Yvonne Jehenson, in “The DoroteaFernando/Luscinda-Cardenio Episode in Don Quijote,” makes the case that in becoming
Princess Micomicona, Dorotea is only partially play-acting, because she is at the same
time soliciting the help of Don Quixote to aide her in her plea to Fernando. Jehenson
states, “Don Fernando has stolen her kingdom and the reader is cognizant of the double
meaning as Queen Micomicona asks Don Quijote for ‘venganza de un traidor que, contra
todo derecho divino y humano, me tiene usurpado mi reino’ (29:365)” (212). So what
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seems to be folly—Dorotea’s willing and exuberant performance as a princess from a
fairytale-like kingdom—could actually be a true entreaty for help, which very much
parallels the damsel-in-distress motif. After the group succeeds in getting Don Quixote
off the mountain and back to the inn, they run into Fernando, who has captured Luscinda.
Following a dramatic encounter, amends are made and each character ends up with their
corresponding partner. Although Don Quixote does not play an integral part in this
honorable conclusion, he thinks he has because immediately beforehand, while
sleepwalking, he believes he has destroyed the giant that held Princess Micomicona’s
kingdom captive. Dorotea’s final words to Don Quixote on the subject are, “Señor mío,
vuestra bondad vuelva la honra al padre que me engendró, y téngale por hombre
advertido y prudente, pues con su ciencia halló camino tan fácil y tan verdadero para
remediar mi desgracia, que yo creo que si por vos, señor, no fuera jamás acertara a tener
la ventura que tengo” (451). Jehenson explains, “The ultimate incorporation and
assimilation of the ludic and the serious is to be found in Dorotea's public avowal to Don
Quijote that by his participation in her make-believe world he has actually rectified the
real world” (212). In the end, however, it is not because Don Quixote takes up the
Princess Micomicona/Dorotea’s plea that she is rescued, but rather Dorotea’s willingness
to participate in the curate and barber’s performance. It is this undertaking that gets her
out of the Sierra Morena and back to the inn, where she accidentally runs into Fernando.
Dorotea’s choice of actions, beginning with the acceptance of Don Fernando’s promise
and ending with their confrontation at the inn, can be summarized as foolish, insanely
dangerous, and even audacious for a young girl of her time period. This madness is
nevertheless what enables her to attain her goal of reclaiming Fernando. Had she abided
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by the rules set out for her by society, she may never have been able to get her husband or
her honor back. Her choice of madness, or rather her preference for risk-taking ventures
and for disobeying social laws, is what saves both her and her lifestyle.
The last two characters tied into the madness of the Sierra Morena are the two
friends of Don Quixote, the barber and the curate. They are individuals who are both
crafty and witty, and they often add levity to the plot. Throughout the novel, the two of
them continually claim that their intent is to help Don Quixote be cured of his madness,
particularly by bringing him home where they hope bed rest will bring him round. This
wish to help him, however, is constantly eclipsed by their desire to have a good time,
which they often do at Don Quixote’s expense. In chapter 6, for example, they take it
upon themselves to purge their friend’s library of what they deem to be the root of his
madness. Once they begin to peruse Don Quixote’s collection, they become caught up in
the stories themselves and end up saving quite a few for their own entertainment.
Immediately after this scrutiny, they are called into Don Quixote’s bedroom by his
shouting. Don Quixote is talking in his sleep, using the archaic speech from books of
chivalry as he believes he is Reinaldos de Montalbán. The curate answers him in kind,
asking him if he isn’t “mal ferido” (140). This technique of imitating Don Quixote is
something the barber and curate take turns doing throughout the novel, leading the
readers to question whether they are just enjoying making fun of their friend. The
narrator explains a little later on that the fifteen days that Don Quixote remained resting
at home, his two friends visited frequently and discussed with him the importance of
knights errant, with Don Quixote emphasizing the world’s need for him to resuscitate
knight errantry. “El cura algunas veces le contradecía, y otras concedía, porque si no
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guardaba este artificio no había poder averiguarse con él” (142). Where the readers would
understand that the curate and barber were only instigating Don Quixote into acting out
his madness, by imitating chivalric language or by testing his beliefs on the subject of
knight errantry, the two friends claim to act this way in order to be able to gauge whether
their friend is mad or not. The curate especially seems to be under the impression that by
imitating the actions and speech of books of chivalry, they will be able to better control
their friend. Their true intentions for Don Quixote, whether they want to cure him or
enjoy his madness, come into question several more times throughout the novel. In the
Sierra Morena, for example, the pair go to elaborate lengths to fool Don Quixote into
coming home. At the end of chapter 26, after accidentally running into Sancho and
hearing about Don Quixote’s penance in the mountains, the curate comes up with a plan.
The narrator explains:
él se vestiría en hábito de doncella andante, y que él procurase ponerse lo mejor
que pudiese como escudero, y que así irían adonde don Quijote estaba, fingiendo
ser ella una doncella afligida y menesterosa, y le pediría un don . . . [para que] se
viniese con ella donde ella le llevase, a desfacelle un agravio que un mal caballero
le tenía fecho, y que le suplicaba asimesmo que no la mandase quitar su antifaz, ni
la demandase cosa de su facienda, fasta que la hubiese fecho derecho de aquel
mal caballero . . . y que desta manera le sacarían [a don Quijote] de allí, y le
llevarían a su lugar, donde procurarían ver si tenía algún remedio su estraña
locura. (325)
They then proceed to borrow all types of clothing and adornment from the innkeeper and
his wife to complete their disguise. This plan is so farfetched, however, that it appears to
be as crazy as the one Don Quixote is currently carrying out in the form of penance. In
executing their scheme, they go to such great lengths to smooth out any discrepancies
that they become just as laughable as their knight errant, much to the amusement of the
readers. It is here in the Sierra Morena more than anywhere else in the novel that the
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curate and barber show their true colors as jokesters, acting out their roles as if in a play.
While they add amusing commentary to the text and frequently provoke both Don
Quixote and Sancho into reacting outlandishly for their comic benefit, Cervantes has cast
the curate and the barber in roles that, although initially seeking to uphold the authority of
logic, actually succumb to what Erasmus refers to as the madness of Reason. By going
out of their way to reign in Don Quixote’s insanity, they go overboard in their efforts and
thereby participate in their own dance of madness, albeit slightly different from their
friend’s.
Within the textual boundaries of Don Quixote, Cervantes’s vision of the
universality of madness is played out through a variety of actions and characters. The
comicality that exists in the novel helps to carry the contagiousness of madness out of the
text to where the readers can both experience and interpret it. Manuel Duran, in “Erasmo
y Cervantes,” believes that “el Quijote, entre otras varias interpretaciones, es el elogio no
de la locura, sino de un loco, que, irónica y paradójicamente, ayuda, con su locura, a
definir y corregir la visión en apariencia normal de los que lo rodean” (970). It is Don
Quixote who, in acting out his visions, inspires others to partake in additional acts of
madness by following their own dreams (Sancho), by attempting to harness his (the Duke
and Duchess), or by scheming to bring him back to their version of reality (Sansón
Carrasco). All of these feats bespeak some degree of folly or foolishness. Cervantes’s
blurring of the traditional division between madness and sanity, via the various characters
he employs to represent one or the other, proves the humorous contention behind
Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly: one man’s wisdom is another man’s idiocy and that the
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universal truth regarding humanity inextricably implies madness, or rather an ingenious
interpretation of life.
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CONCLUSION
The purpose of this thesis is to look at the connection between comicality and
madness as represented in Don Quixote, an issue I believe to be important for several
reasons. Primarily, in analyzing this connection, it is possible to better define where Don
Quixote fits in the history of comic literature. It continues the Menippean tradition, for
example, which stems from the Classic Age. This novel allows madness to take center
stage and at the same time incorporates everyone into its vision of madness, something
that differentiates it from the early modern and modern current of isolating the fool or
marginalizing basic human characteristics by designating them as undesirable or
delinquent. The awareness of the scope of madness found in this novel affects the overall
understanding of the work itself, in that madness is an integral aspect of what it is to be
human. This philosophy is embedded in the Menippean tradition as well as in Humanism
and this is also why the carnivalesque mechanism of multi-directional laughter is so
available in Cervantes’s text.
Regarding the organization of my thesis, I hope that the reader will have found
method in my madness. In the initial chapter, “Reading Don Quixote in the Menippean
Tradition,” I began with an analysis of Menippean satire and how and where this surfaces
in Cervantes’s masterpiece. It was the chapter that dealt most explicitly with Carnival,
and I wanted to establish the framework for this dissertation regarding the type of comic
vision that embodies Don Quixote. The main purpose of Menippean satire is to question
social ideas and philosophies, something done through laughter, and because the majority
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of this questioning takes place in this novel through dialogues and other types of
journeys, this led me into the second chapter.
Titled “Disturbing Devices: Journey and Humor in Don Quixote,” in this chapter I
looked at the similarities between the mechanisms of laughter and journey. Laughter
occurs through a psychological movement, where a contrast or break in the linearity of a
previous idea provokes a humorous interpretation on the part of the observer. Likewise,
things such as dialogues, physical and psychological maturation, and geographical
adventures require movement of some kind. In Cervantes’s novel, the journeying that
takes place often provokes laughter, which is likewise a journey in interpretation.
Because journeys tend to imply that there is a destination to be reached, I thought
it logical to follow chapter 2 with the analysis of the differences, and therefore the
dissimilar outcomes, between Cervantes’s and Avellaneda’s novels. In chapter 3, “Humor
in Cervantes and Avellaneda: Un sendero que se bifurca,” the different effects of uni- and
multi-directional laughter are examined. In analyzing the contrast between Cervantes’s
and Avellaneda’s texts, I emphasized the validity of each work but that they produce very
different products in terms of humor and its place in a society. Above all, in this section I
stressed the importance of reading Avellaneda. By understanding the direction the
apocryphal text took, the readers can return to Cervantes’s novel with a better sense of its
unique vision and therefore can more fully appreciate the complex comicality found in
his Don Quixote.
Just as a particular comic vision will lead a text to a distinct outcome or
interpretation, so also different types of madness allow for characters to display the ways
in which they view their own textual reality. In chapter 4, or “Madness and Laughter:
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Ingenious Interpretation,” I looked at the ethical and historical dimensions of laughter
especially with regard to madness from the vantage point of Humanism. I posited that
madness, like laughter is a fundamental human experience. They are also destabilizing
mechanisms in several different ways. By focusing on the subversiveness of madness and
its relationship to humor, I return to my initial chapter on Menippean satire. And so,
much in the way that Carnival is represented by recurring actions of death and rebirth or a
pattern coming full circle, I wanted the direction of my thesis to imitate the cyclical
nature of Carnival.
With respect to where this thesis fits within the realm of Golden Age studies, I
believe it helps to reevaluate the humoristic value both of Don Quixote and the
singularity of Cervantes’s comic vision. Drawing on the viewpoints of James Iffland, E.
T. Aylward, and a number of critics who have focused on comicality and Cervantes, I
have sought to further delineate several of the more important humorous components of
Don Quixote, emphasizing its uniqueness not only within Golden Age literature but also
within the tradition of comic literature throughout the ages.
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